


Pseudonymous

by a_t_rain



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare, SHAKESPEARE William - Works
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Gen, Theatre, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-29
Updated: 2014-11-29
Packaged: 2018-02-27 11:25:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2691149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_t_rain/pseuds/a_t_rain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After <i>The Mousetrap</i>, Hamlet runs away with the players.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Princes to Act

**Author's Note:**

> This started off as a spoof of daft Shakespeare-authorship conspiracy theories like the one dramatized in the film _Anonymous_ (which invariably depend on the premise that the plays are autobiographical, and I thought it might be fun to explore what happens if you take that premise to the extreme). Eventually, though, this story grew into a reasonably serious AU exploration of what might have happened if one particular character had made a different choice during Act 3 of _Hamlet_. Which character it is, and what the choice is, will eventually be revealed; for now, I will say only that it is not Hamlet, who is, as usual, _reacting_ rather than acting.
> 
>  _The Life of St. Crispin_ is my own invention, but loosely based on Thomas Deloney's _The Gentle Craft_ (which spawned two real-life plays, Thomas Dekker's _The Shoemaker's Holiday_ and William Rowley's _A Shoemaker, A Gentleman_ ).

**Dramatis Personae**

**The tragedians of the city**  
FREDERIK, head of a company of players; lately played Lucianus in _The Mouse-Trap; or, the Murder of Gonzago_  
MARTHA, his wife  
JUDIT, their daughter  
MAXIMILIAN, their son; played Baptista in _The Murder of Gonzago_  
ALEXANDER, their younger son  
HENRIK, played Gonzago  
HANS  
KARL  
THOMAS, formerly a physician, betrothed to Judit  
HYGENIA, Thomas’s dog

An innkeeper and his wife  
RICHARD, JOHN, HENRY, AUGUSTINE, LAWRENCE, WILL, and ROBIN, a company of English players

HAMLET, prince of Denmark  
Queen GERTRUDE, his mother  
POLONIUS, lord chamberlain of Denmark  
OPHELIA, his daughter  
LAERTES, his son  
HORATIO, friend to Hamlet  
ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN, courtiers

_**Hamlet:** Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers – if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me – with two Provincial roses on my raz’d shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players?  
**Horatio:** Half a share._

“Something tells me,” observed Thomas, “that we are not like to have our fee for this play.”

“Stop mocking,” said Judit, “and help me harness the mules.”

“I was not mocking, my dear, merely offering an observation. What _was_ your father thinking?”

“He was thinking that we – that you are Prince Hamlet’s Men,” said Judit, “not the King’s Men.”

“Nor are we ever like to be, after tonight.”

“If you mean to spend the rest of your life as a player, you will come to understand that you do not cross your patron.”

“If you mean to spend any time at all in royal courts, _you_ will learn that you do not offend the king if you can help it. It seems to me that a prudent man should have been able to foresee that a play in which a king is murdered by his nephew would hardly please under the circumstances, especially if the nephew can scarcely keep himself from dancing with glee all the while. I think the speech about second marriages was not particularly tactful, either.”

Judit wondered whether she ought to slap Thomas or acknowledge that he had a very good point. As she was betrothed to him, the former did not seem advisable; the latter, however, was unthinkable. “Father,” she said shortly, “is head of the company, not you, and he saw nothing wrong in it. Besides, we are _tragedians_. How many tragedies are _not_ about the deaths of kings?” (Judit was not, of course, officially a tragedian at all, but rather an unpaid laundress, prompter, mender of costumes, and collector of pennies, among other duties – but she had grown up as one of the company, and Thomas had been a player for less than a year.)

“Now that you mention it,” said Thomas, in the meditative voice that Judit always found particularly infuriating, “I do not understand why the deaths of kings are always considered more tragic than the deaths of peasants. Can you explain that, you who know everything about the ways of players?”

“ _You_ write a play about the deaths of peasants, then,” said Judit, “and see if anyone comes to see it!”

“I think I _would_ if your father would let me. It would be something new.” Thomas whistled for Hygenia, who came bounding out of the shadows, barking with joy. “‘Twill be some time before we are invited to play before kings and princes again – if ever – and those who are _not_ kings and princes might like to see something of their own lives on the stage.”

“People do not come to the theater to see their own lives,” Judit explained. Thomas was a good actor, considering his lack of experience, but he could sometimes be very ignorant about the ways of audiences. “They come to live someone _else’s_ life for two or three hours, and they like it when we make them believe that kings and princes have greater cares and shorter lives than they do.” She turned to help Hans and Karl pack the rest of their costumes and properties into the wagon; Thomas picked up Hygenia and made a bed for her in one of the corners.

“Is that all?” Judit’s father spoke for almost the first time since their performance. “Let’s go, then. I mean to be well away from Elsinore by dawn.”

Everyone else was already seated in the wagon: Judit’s mother looking tight-lipped and anxious in the torchlight; old Henrik, who had seen worse disasters than this one in his thirty years with the company, smoking his pipe with a philosophical air; Judit’s little brothers sitting on a trunk and fidgeting with suppressed excitement. They had never seen a performance end in such a premature and spectacular fashion. Maximilian, who had been playing the Queen, had been mending his ruff in the tiring-house when the king called for lights. Alexander, who had seen it all, was filling him in on exactly how King Claudius had looked, and what the rest of the courtiers had done.

They had almost started on their way when a black-cloaked figure slipped out of the castle. Judit’s mother jumped. Her father said, softly, “We must face it, whatever it is.”

The figure moved closer, and Judit saw that he was carrying a purse. “I had almost forgot to give you your fee, Frederik.” It was Prince Hamlet’s voice.

“My lord,” said Judit’s father, “this is too much.”

“‘Tis a little extra for bad behavior. My uncle’s, I mean. Possibly mine as well. Take it, sir. It is in earnest of another favor you must do for me.”

“What favor, my lord?” Father did not sound very happy about this prospect. The last thing any company of players needed, Judit knew, was to get caught up in a court intrigue that none of them so much as understood.

The prince whispered something in Father’s ear.

“Ha! You are merry, my lord,” said Father, not quite as if he meant it.

“I am in earnest.”

Father froze still as a stone for a moment. “As you will. We are yours to command. But it will not be a comfortable journey, my lord.”

“I presume it will be more comfortable than a journey to the next world. That is all I ask.”

“Very well, then, my lord.” Father turned to Karl. “Help Prince Hamlet into the wagon, and then _drive_ for all you’re worth.”

Prince Hamlet’s Men stared at one another, astonished, as their patron clambered into their midst. Everyone rose; Judit tried to curtsy; just then Karl gave a command to the mules, and the wagon lurched forward. The company fell all over one another like a line of dominoes. Hygenia yelped.

“Please be seated,” said the prince as they picked themselves up and nursed their bruises.

“You know Henrik, of course,” said Father, “and Hans and the boys. This is Thomas, the newest member of our company. My wife, Martha. My daughter, Judit.”

Judit brushed straw out of her hair and tried to look presentable. “I am honored, my lord.”

“And I.” Prince Hamlet raised her hand to his lips, as if she were a court lady, and Judit’s world turned upside down.

* * *

Frederik took over the driving from Karl once they had gone a few miles. He was not likely to sleep anyway. Troubles upon troubles, he thought: first the plague had shut the play-houses for half a year and killed two good and experienced actors, and then the boy companies started luring away their custom, and then the king’s sudden death had closed the theaters again. They had been hoping that they would, at least, be the King’s Men after it was over, but the electors had chosen Claudius instead. And now _this_.

He must have been blind. Why had he not seen that _The Murder of Gonzago_ was the most inflammatory play they could have chosen? He had been distracted, he supposed – too eager to satisfy his own curiosity about the rumors that their patron was mad. (Thomas had said no when Frederik had asked his professional opinion yesterday – but he seemed less confident tonight, now that the prince had turned up white-faced and staring and had insisted on joining them on their tour of the provinces.) And, of course, he’d been busy learning the new scene the prince had written for Lucianus, only half of which he’d been able to deliver before the king had risen in fury, and Frederik had made an executive decision to leave Elsinore before they could be summoned into his presence.

 _The new scene the prince had written for Lucianus!_ Frederik sat bolt upright. The garden scene – with the poison poured into the sleeping king’s ears instead of given to him in his wine, as it had been in the original play – and as everyone knew, the old king had died while napping in his garden. Bitten by a poisonous serpent, or so it had been proclaimed, even though the Danish adder hardly ever killed anybody.

 _My God_. Frederik whipped the mules to make them pick up their speed. The play hadn’t just been tactless, it had been an accusation of treason and murder, and they were lucky King Claudius hadn’t had them arrested on the spot.

Damn Prince Hamlet, damn him, _damn_ him.

Somewhat irrelevantly, Frederik reflected that the prince was also bloody annoying when he took to amateur directing.

* * *

“This must not be known,” said Polonius positively.

Gertrude nodded in agreement. She was still numb with shock, and while she had sometimes harbored private doubts, in the past, about the quality of Polonius’s judgment, it was comforting now to place herself in his hands. He had served both of her husbands faithfully, and they had always relied upon him. She needed someone she could rely on now.

“I will have it proclaimed that the plague is raging again; that will give us cover for sealing the castle off from the world, and no one will think it strange that he is not seen by the people.”

“Plague?” Gertrude was not sure of the wisdom of this. It would, she thought, be rather hard on the people who were, even now, giving thanks that their families had been spared from last year’s epidemic.

“Very good, sir,” said Rosencrantz.

“A most excellent stratagem,” observed Guildenstern.

“We approve your wisdom,” they both added together.

“Very well,” Gertrude agreed wearily. “Let it be done.”

“Now,” said Polonius, turning to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, “Prince Hamlet must be found and brought back. I entrust you both – as you have ever shown yourselves trustworthy and honorable, and as you are the prince’s intimate friends, yet will not allow that friendship to cloud your judgment, and as – where was I? Ah, yes. I entrust you with the task.”

Gertrude had known this must be the next order of business, but the foreknowledge did not make it any easier to face. “He – he may have slain himself, Polonius,” she ventured.

“I think it very likely, my lord.” Horatio spoke for the first time. “And in any case, pursuit cannot bring back the dead.”

“So it may be,” said Polonius, “but we do not know that it is so, and in default of so knowing, we cannot have a dangerous madman on the run. ‘Tis needful for his own safety, as well as ours, that he be pursued. Find him, my lords.”

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern bowed and departed.

“Good night, Polonius,” said Gertrude meaningfully.

Polonius bade her good night, at great length, and tried to console her about the evening’s events. After the third or fourth time she said “Good night, Polonius,” he finally took the hint.

“Good night, your majesty,” said Horatio.

“Stay, Horatio. My son ever esteemed you more than Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, I think?”

“I think so too, my lady.”

“And do you esteem him, even now?”

“Yes,” said Horatio without hesitation.

“I believe you. I want you to _find my son_ , Horatio. Before they do.”

“And what should I do then, my lady?”

Gertrude drew a shuddering breath. “Do what you think is right.”

* * *

“Who’s there?” 

Horatio lifted his torch. The light fell on a boy dressed as one of the castle pages.

“My name is Oliver, sir. The queen bid me stay with you and serve you on your journey.”

“That is kind of her, but I do not need a servant. Tell her I will travel faster if I go alone.”

“I dare not, sir.” Oliver’s voice was tremulous. “She will be angry if I do not go with you.”

Horatio looked at the boy. He was rather a pathetic little figure; his clothing was ill-fitting, and his hair looked as if it had been chopped off in haste with a pair of gardening shears. He seemed as much out of place in the palace as Horatio himself sometimes felt. “Very well. Carry my cloak-bag, if you would.”

* * *

The players stopped at dawn to rest the mules, who refused to go any further. (Father cursed them under his breath and said that he wished they had bought horses instead; horses would trot until they dropped dead, and Judit feared that in his current mood, Father would have made them do just that.) At any rate, Mother said, if they were forced to stop they might as well have breakfast. Hans and Karl began gathering firewood, and Judit went to get some food out of the wagon. The cooks at Elsinore had given them two loaves of fresh-baked bread for their journey, as well as some sausages and cheese.

She had to step carefully over Prince Hamlet, who hadn’t stirred. Thomas had diagnosed shock and exhaustion, and had said they must let him sleep as long as he would. Judit eyed him curiously; they had never had a prince in their wagon before. In sleep he looked like any other man, his dark hair rumpled and his mouth slightly open. He was rather too pale and sharp-featured to be called handsome, but Judit thought he had an interesting face. She remembered it was not her place to think about this, only to get breakfast.

In their haste to get away from Elsinore, they had packed the wagon haphazardly. She stared at the company’s possessions, bleary-eyed, and tried to remember where they had put the box with their knives and toasting-forks. She finally discovered it lying half-hidden under the cloak the prince had spread over himself to make a blanket. Cautiously, she slid the box out from underneath his arm. He still didn’t stir. Her hand brushed the sleeve of his doublet. The black velvet seemed curiously stiff.

She turned back the cloak and examined his sleeves. The shirt he wore underneath his doublet was stained brown at the cuff, she noted with annoyance. He ought to have given it to her right after the play. Thomas always forgot, too, and blood stains were the devil to get out of clothing once they had set.

She blinked. But of course the prince’s clothing _couldn’t_ be stained with the bladder of pig’s blood they had set aside for the final scene of _The Murder of Gonzago_. For one thing, they had never used it, and besides, they usually tried not to get blood on the _audience’s_ clothes.

She remembered the wild, desperate look on his face the previous night, and had a giddy moment of fear – but no, he was warm and breathing, and she could not see any obvious sign of injury. She wondered how the blood had come there.

Karl poked his head into the wagon. “Your mother wants to know what’s keeping you. So do the rest of us, for that matter. I’m half-starved.”

Judit gathered up the things for breakfast and followed him, resolved to say nothing about her discovery for the moment.

* * *

“My lady,” said Horatio, “you _cannot_ do this. Let me take you back to Elsinore.”

“It _can_ be done,” insisted Ophelia. “I have often seen it happen in plays.”

“In plays. Just so. In life, high-born ladies cannot wander about the world disguised as pages!”

“How would the playwrights know to write about such things, if they had not happened at one time or another?”

Horatio toyed with the idea of explaining the concepts of _fiction_ and _imagination_ to Ophelia, but after a long night of riding, he was too exhausted to make the effort. “Your father and your friends will miss you.”

“My father sent Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to find him, thinking they were his intimate friends,” said Ophelia, “and yet, I think I know him better than they do.”

Horatio had to admit that she was probably right. She might, in fact, be able to help him in his task. This didn’t change the fact that Polonius would have his head, and Laertes too, and probably Hamlet as well, if they ever found him. “What of your reputation, my lady?”

“What of it? I seem to have lost it already.” Ophelia tried to toss this remark off airily, but Horatio observed that she was dangerously close to tears.

It seemed cruel to send her back, and maybe crueler still to abet her in this mad game of hers. “Let’s find an inn,” he said at last, “and rest a while, and talk.”

* * *

“We’ll play _The Life of St. Crispin_ this afternoon,” declared Frederik.

The rest of the company looked at him in disbelief. “‘Tis an old play,” ventured Henrik, “and well out of fashion. We have not played it these two years and more.”

“What if it is out of fashion? Old plays always please best in these little country towns; they love not innovation here.”

“Alexander and Thomas will have to learn their parts. So will...” Henrik nodded at the wagon, where – their patron? their liege? their _fellow?_ – was sleeping.

“What of it? Any player worth the name can learn his part in a morning.”

So _that_ was it, Judit realized. Father wanted to humiliate Prince Hamlet, to make him aware of how very, very far from being a real player he was.

“Thomas, you’re to play the part of Crispianus.” Frederik dug a bundle of parts out of the box where the company papers were kept, and tossed one of them to Thomas. “Maximilian, the Princess Ursula and the crippled boy’s mother. I shall play the Emperor of Rome and the general of the Gauls. Henrik, the king of Logria, the blind Friar, and the Roman general. Hans, the shoemaker and the first soldier. Karl, the shoemaker’s journeyman, the second soldier, and the clown. Alexander, the Queen of Logria, the shoemaker’s wife, Ursula’s nurse, and the crippled boy. Stop gaping, child, they’re all small parts.”

“Have you not left out a part?” Thomas asked. “I thought this was the play of _St. Crispin_.”

“So it is,” said Frederik. “Who better to play a disguised prince than a disguised prince?”

“Father, you cannot mean to make him play the lead part _today!_ ” Judit protested. “He’s never acted before!”

“Why, he acted Aeneas the day before yesterday, and did it very well. Besides,” Frederik added with a malicious smile, “he was full of wise and sound advice before we acted Gonzago; I verily think he knows more about our art than we do.”

Hans and Karl sniggered; they had been playing the clowns yesterday, and had not appreciated being told to speak no more than was set down for them. Thomas was smirking, too, and even gentle old Henrik looked amused. They’re all against him, Judit thought. It isn’t _fair._

“Frederik,” Mother ventured, “had you not better think of what is best for the company?”

“I _am_ thinking of what is best for the company.” Father’s jaw was set. “If a new actor is to fail, ‘tis best he fail in a muddy inn-yard in the provinces, and ‘tis best he do it while he can still go _home._ ”

* * *

Hamlet blinked, rolled over, and groaned. He had slept through every jolt of the wagon, but he felt bruised and battered now. He remembered where he was and how he had come there, and groaned again.

He opened his eyes. There was a pretty, red-haired girl watching him – Frederik’s daughter, was it? Damn it all, he’d hoped for a bit of privacy. He pulled the cloak up to his chin.

“Good morrow, my lord.”

“Good morrow.”

The girl set a basin of water and a cloth beside him. “There is hot water, my lord, if you would like to wash.”

He most certainly _did_ want to wash, but not with her watching him. “Thank you. That was very kind.” He gave her the sort of nod that any of the palace servants would have immediately understood to be a dismissal. She didn’t move. But, of course, she _wasn’t_ his servant (he would need to remember that), and the wagon belonged to her father; _he_ was the interloper here.

“I kept some breakfast for you.” She set down a mug of small beer and a trencher of food. “You may have Thomas’s share of the sausages; he never eats pork. There’s no more butter, but the cheese is very good. My lord. Er, what are we to call you now that you are our fellow?”

“I suppose I had better have some false name.” Hamlet cast about for the sort of name that would belong to someone very ordinary, and came up with the name of one of the palace guards. “You must call me ‘Francisco,’ and forget that I was ever called anything else.”

“Very well. I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Francisco. My name is Judit, in case you’ve forgotten.” (He had.) “I mend costumes, and look after properties, and things. By the way, my l– ... Francisco, you’re to play St. Crispin this afternoon.”

“What?”

“Here is your part. I’ll help you learn it, if you like; I’ve got the prompt-book here.”

Good _God._ He hadn’t even thought about that aspect of his new life. “I would like that very well,” he managed to say, “but not now. May I have a moment alone?”

“Of course,” said Judit. “There are chamber pots in the corner of the wagon. Come and join us when you will.”

Judit jumped down from the wagon, and Hamlet stripped off his shirt and doublet. He plunged his hands in the water up to the wrist and scrubbed them with the cloth until the dried blood had come off; that was easy enough, but his clothes were ruined. They would have to be hidden until he could dispose of them without attracting notice. He wadded them up and thrust them into a trunk, along with the dagger he had taken from Elsinore; some of the players might enter at any moment, so he dared not try to clean it.

He searched among the costumes until he found a clean shirt and a black doublet that looked very like his own; the cut of the sleeves was different, and so was the trim, but with luck no one would notice.

It was not until he was fully dressed that his hands began to shake. He shut his eyes, trying to remember: but there was only a vast blank.


	2. One Man in His Time Plays Many Parts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _The History of Amleth_ is based on Saxo Grammaticus's version of the _Hamlet_ story, which is utterly on CRACK.

Hamlet had been staring at the same speech in _The Life of St. Crispin_ for half an hour.

_Sweet is the simple and the humble life,_  
Which never felt the prick of treason’s fang;  
‘Twixt palace walls lurk danger, toil, and strife  
Here, brother, let us live without a pang... 

It was silly, fustian stuff. Why was he finding it so hard to learn?

Sitting beside him, Alexander was muttering scraps of his part. _Fly, brave sons, fly, and fight another day. For prudence ofttimes ‘scapes where valour dies..._

Idly, Hamlet wondered whether his own behavior exemplified prudence, cowardice, or flat-out madness. It would be easier to decide, he thought, if he could make _sense_ of what had happened last night. It seemed inconceivable that a man could perform the act toward which his whole life had been building and remember nothing of it; yet, was it not also inconceivable that someone else could have plucked his revenge almost from under his hand, like a cutpurse at a fair?

None of this was helping him learn the part of Crispin. He stared at the page again.

* * *

“ _Tush, young man_ ,” read Judit in the quavering tones of the old friar, “ _you may trust me to keep your secret; I swear by the blessed Book that I will be both willing and constant. I have done many of these feats in my days; I know that youth are youth, but they will not have the whole world wonder at their doings. And where shall it be?_ ”

There was a brief silence, until Hamlet realized had missed his cue again. “ _At St. Gregory’s chapel, good father, and be not forgetful to observe the time. Two of the clock is the hour, and therefore look you be ready when I shall call you_.”

“ _I warrant you, and because I will not oversleep myself, I will for this night lie in my clothes, so that as soon as ever you call, I will straight be ready_.”

“ _Then, father, I will trust you; so, farewell. Oh, haste the happy hour that makes us one! Ne’er did a starving man long so for food, as I do long for my sweet Ursula. Yet, silence! For I dare not speak my mind – no, not to mine own brother, nor my dame ..._ Judit, what’s next?”

“‘ _So, peace_.’”

“ _So, peace, till silent night draw all to rest – and love, be safely housed within my breast!_ ”

“Very good, my lord – I mean, Francisco.” Judit shut the prompt-book and looked out the window to the inn-yard, where her father and Thomas had nearly finished setting up a makeshift stage. “I am afraid we will have no time to practice the rest. The people are beginning to come, and I must help Mother take their money.”

Hamlet reflected that it really would have been much better if he had killed himself yesterday, after all.

* * *

The play was not, at least, a _complete_ disaster. This was mostly thanks to Hans and Karl, who improvised comic patter whenever the main action fell flat, and even did a bit of tumbling whenever Prince Hamlet bumped into them – which was often, because Judit had forgotten to drill him on the complicated system of unwritten rules for entrances and exits. He had managed to learn most of his lines, though. Judit only had to prompt him three times, and Alexander twice. By the end of the third act, she had begun to breathe again – until Alexander burst through the curtains that surrounded the prompter’s stool.

“Judit!” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I _forgot_ to learn the part of Ursula’s nurse! Father made me play so many parts, it slipped my mind, and you were busy with Pr – with Francisco and could not remind me.”

“Hush, Alec.” Judit handed him the prompt-book. “You can learn it now; ‘tis only one scene.”

Alec started to cry (silently, for he had been trained from infancy never to make any noise the audience could hear). “I cannot learn it! Not now! You have to help me!”

“No, Alec. Not before the prince.”

“ _Please_ , Judit! He hardly knows us; he will not notice the difference. Besides, he says that he is not the prince any more, and we must regard him as nothing more than a poor apprentice player.”

“ _Father_ will know the difference, and he’ll flay us alive if we do anything to risk our place as Prince Hamlet’s Men.” Judit stopped and considered. Father would have flayed them alive yesterday; today, she was not so sure. In fact, Father seemed to have gone utterly mad, and to be acting with a reckless disregard for the company’s future. “Very well. You must keep the prompt-book while I dress, and don’t forget to prompt Francisco at _once_ if he loses his thread.”

* * *

The play ended with a dance of the shoemakers, their wives, and the court lords and ladies – a routine that Frederik had originally intended to skip, but the rest of the company overruled him. It was a sure crowd-pleaser, and the climax of the play itself, when Prince Crispin healed the crippled boy with his touch and revealed himself to be the true heir to the kingdom, had left the audience visibly unmoved.

Whatever his inadequacies as an apprentice player might be, at least Hamlet _had_ learned to dance at court. They would be able to make use of him, Judit thought, as long as they cast him in parts that played to his strengths. She would have to talk to Father and Thomas about trying something more suitable tomorrow. _Love’s Melancholy and Love’s Mirth_ , perhaps, which had two masques and a great deal of misdirected letters, which could double as crib sheets.

The audience was clapping their hands and beginning to join in the dance, and Judit decided that they could, after all, count the afternoon a success. That was before the bailiff and the aldermen arrived to shut them down.

“ _Hold! Enough! Peace, stop the music!_ ”

Maximilian and Henrik stopped playing; the dancers straightened in mid-bow; the audience slowly came to attention.

“Return to your homes,” proclaimed the bailiff, “and may God have mercy on us all, for the plague rages outside our city walls! This town is under quarantine, in the name of Claudius, King of Denmark.”

The audience began to murmur, and dispersed.

_Oh God, no_ , thought Judit. _Not again!_ The rest of the company looked similarly dismayed – especially Thomas, who had particular reasons to dread another epidemic.

She had a fleeting impression that Prince Hamlet had _not_ been surprised when the bailiff first interrupted their performance, but when she looked at him again, he seemed just as startled at the proclamation of plague as anyone else.

* * *

Hamlet was, in fact, startled – although when he thought about it, the proclamation made perfectly good sense. It had the mark of Polonius’s particular brand of low cunning. As with most of Polonius’s plans, he was sure the old Lord Chamberlain had not thought about the possible consequences, nor considered what his next move was to be when the ruse could no longer be kept up.

At any rate, it was a reprieve of sorts. He had thought that he would be a laughingstock for days at the inn, but the people had forgotten all about the play as soon as the bailiff had made his announcement. The few who remained were either buying up the last of the barrel of ale that had been rolled into the courtyard, on the theory that they might as well get blind drunk before they died, or hectoring the drinkers to repent. Thomas, inexplicably, was calling for bath-water and ordering Martha and Judit to do the laundry at once. The rest of the players were arguing with the innkeeper, who had offered them cheap rooms in exchange for a promise to perform a play every day, and who was now trying to raise the rates.

Hamlet took refuge behind the prompter’s curtain, and tried to curl up as tightly as possible.

Judit, flushed and sweaty from hauling water, found him there some time later. “Laundry, sir?”

“What? Oh, er, no. Thank you.”

“Most of the players are in the tap-room. They’d be very pleased if you would join them.”

“Aye, as I would be very pleased if someone impaled me upon a stake.”

“What my father did to you was not just,” said Judit positively. “It is not what we _do_ to new players. They were all new players once, even Henrik, and they know that. They respect you for getting through a play you had never seen before without stumbling. Karl said he could not have done it, and he has been an actor since he was eleven.”

“I _did_ stumble. More than once.”

“Not so the audience would notice. In any case, you cannot spend the rest of your life brooding.”

Hamlet opened his mouth to say that actually, he _could_ spend the rest of his life brooding, and had been well on his way to doing just that before the players had arrived at Elsinore – and then decided he hadn’t the energy to argue with Judit, who showed every sign of being an extremely stubborn woman.

* * *

“Hallo, Francisco!” Hans filled another glass from the jug of beer, and set it in front of the prince. “What thought you of the play? Karl and I think it is a very old, stale piece, and one that mocks nature with too many improbabilities to be believed; yet Henrik says he has known a time when it pleased well.”

Hamlet smiled and shook his head. “There are more improbabilities in nature, I find, than on the stage. I will believe almost anything. And yet, for all that, I do not believe that a prince could learn the shoemaker’s craft in a day. I am learning that many a trade looks easy to a stranger’s eyes, yet proves difficult and treacherous in practice.”

“You did well enough, lad,” said Henrik. “Drink deep.”

Judit came in and began counting out the proceeds from the company’s cash-box. “Three marks, eight shillings, and fourpence. That’s ten shillings for each of the shareholders.” She slid a small heap of coins across the table to Henrik, Hans, and Karl. “I’ll keep Father’s and Thomas’s shares until they come. Max, you and Alec may have eightpence each to buy sweetmeats. Five shillings to the hired man.” She pressed the coins into Hamlet’s hand. “I wonder if this is the first money you have ever earned?”

“The first at any honest trade.” Hamlet lowered his voice, so that the innkeeper might not hear. “Princes are little more than sturdy beggars. But have you kept nothing for yourself?”

“What for, my lord? I am neither shareholder, nor hired man, nor prentice.”

“I wondered. There were four ladies in the final dance, were there not?”

“Were there? I did not see.”

“And yet, there are only two boys in the company.”

Judit laughed, and tossed her hair over her shoulders as she rose from the table. “One man in his time plays many parts,” she said enigmatically.

Hamlet followed her. “ _Which_ man? Hans and Karl were in the dance, I think – so was Thomas – and I do not think your father and Henrik would make very pretty ladies!”

Judit smiled, and shrugged. “You will learn that one can do much with a mask, a wig, and a little powder.”

“Can you? Then you ought, I think, to earn some commission for your artistry.” Hamlet signaled to the tapster. “Do not go yet; allow me to buy you a drink with the first honest wages that ever I earned. What will you have?”

“Rhenish wine. Thank you, Francisco.”

* * *

The Rhenish at the inn was not as good as the bottle they had been given at the palace yesterday; yet Judit liked it well enough. And there was _much_ to be said for the company of a man who bought you a glass of wine, and bid you sit for a while, instead of commanding you to wash clothing he had worn only once.

Prince Hamlet had the reputation of being a wit, and Judit soon found that it was quite true. She was not sure that she had anything very clever to say herself – after a long and exhausting day, it was all she could do to follow the thread of his conversation – but she enjoyed listening to him. And, after all, men seemed to like girls who laughed at their jokes much more than those who tried to compete with them.

It was some time before she began to suspect that anything was wrong with Hamlet. She felt, rather than thought, that he was talking _too_ fast, _too_ cleverly, and altogether as if he were trying to suppress some dreadful thought that would come with silence. Once she had taken the impression, she could not lose it. There was something desperate and feverish about the flow of words, and she found herself thinking once again of the rumors that the prince was mad.

She had not had time to consider this for long, however, when Thomas came into the taproom. He looked not very well pleased to see her laughing and talking with Prince Hamlet. _Good_ , she thought. Let him learn that there were _some_ men who regarded her as more than a laundress.

* * *

From the way Thomas was looking at him, Hamlet thought he would do well to push off, but he was anxious not to be left alone with his own thoughts. He sought out the company of Frederik’s younger son, who was curled up in front of the fireplace, idly petting the dog called Hygenia.

He repeated his question about the number of ladies at the dance to Alexander. The boy looked alarmed. “Please, m’lord – Francisco, I mean – don’t think ill of us, and don’t punish Father for it. ‘Twas only for the dance at the end – that is, Mother and Judit were not meant to have speaking parts, only I made Judit play the nurse because I forgot to learn it. Father knew nothing of it. That is, he knew about the dance, but he wanted to leave it out, only the others said that it would please the audience more than the play had done.”

“Judit, I take it, has acted before?” That seemed a safe conjecture; she had slipped into the nurse’s role with ease, and had shown a sense of comic timing that could only come from experience.

“Well–” Alexander hesitated, and then seemed to decide that he had already spilled too many of the company’s secrets to hold anything back. “It began after the plague, sir. Two of our men had died, and a third run away, and then Johannes was arrested for stealing a chicken in Aalborg, and I wasn’t tall enough yet to play women’s parts, so Father said he did not see how we were to go on. So Judit coaxed him into letting her and Mother play some of the ladies – in a mask, so that no one would see who they were. And Thomas had just joined the company – he went to the university in Bologna, you know – and he took Judit’s part, saying that women acted in the Italian comedies and no one thought the worse of them. So then Judit said she would marry him, and Father was so glad that he gave in.”

“Judit decided to marry Thomas because he took her part in an argument?”

“So Max and I think, sir. They all wanted to marry her – Hans, and Karl, and poor Niels who died of the plague, and Johannes, although nobody thought she would be silly enough to take _him_. Father was hoping she would marry Hans or Karl, as they’ve been with the company since they were boys, but Judit said they’d been slipping into one another’s beds for almost as long as she’d known them, and she didn’t mean to share her husband with another man unless _she_ could have one, too. At any rate, Father was pleased enough when she made up her mind and chose _somebody_ , for he said he was too old to stay head of the company until Max and I grow up, and he thought Thomas would do well enough as long as Judit keeps a check on his stranger ideas. Now he is trying to hurry them to the church before she changes her mind, but Judit says she needs time to sew her wedding-gown and make pillow-cases for her dowry. I am not sure she means to marry him at all.”

Alexander’s conversation, Hamlet noted, was certainly enlightening. He wondered what the boy would have to say about _him_ as soon as he was out of earshot. “Why is it that Thomas eats no pork?” he asked, curious to see what other secrets might lurk within the company.

“I do not properly understand it, sir. It is something to do with a man named Bacon that he met in England. Thomas admires him very much.”

“And ... he thinks the pig might be a relative?” Hamlet reflected that perhaps _he_ ought to give up eating pork, by that token. He was almost on the point of making another jest about it, when he recalled that there were very few pigs named _Francisco_.

Alexander giggled. “No, he thinks that pork might be a cause of the plague. You’ll have to ask him, sir. The rest of us think he’s mad.”

That, Hamlet reflected, made two of them. Perhaps he ought to be friends with Thomas.

Frederik had appeared in the doorway of the taproom. “Idlers, idlers all! Think you that because it is plague-time, there’s no work to be done?”

“Why, yes, we _do_ think so!” said Hans. “That is the point of plague-time.”

“‘Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die,’” added Karl. “King Solomon said that.”

“King Solomon _also_ had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines!” retorted Frederik. “I suppose you think that is a good idea too!”

The company stared at one another, bewildered. Thomas ventured at last to say that it did sound like rather a good idea, when you put it like that, only he thought he might skip the wives. Judit trod heavily on his foot.

“ _Enough!_ ” Frederik snapped. “We have a new player, and ‘tis your part to teach him what he needs to know. Thomas, you’re to train him in sword-fighting tomorrow, and teach him about entrances and exits so he’s not tripping over people. And I would have some new plays as soon as the plague is over. No more moldy old scraps like _The Life of St. Crispin_.”

Nobody felt like pointing out that Frederik had been the one who ordered them to play _The Life of St. Crispin_ in the first place, so there was a short silence. “ _Which_ new plays, Father?” asked Judit at last.

“That,” said Frederik, “is Francisco’s part.” He turned to Hamlet. “You _can_ write, I suppose? Yes, of course; that speech of Lucianus’s was well enough. We’ve had no one to mend plays or make new ones since Niels died; I had hopes of Thomas, being a university man, but his notions are too curious. See what you can make of this.”

“This” proved to be a slim quarto volume entitled _The History of Amleth, Prince of Denmark_. Hamlet pocketed the book, feeling altogether confident for the first time since he had joined the company. How hard could writing a play be?

* * *

The trouble with _The History of Amleth, Prince of Denmark_ , he realized some hours later, was that it was going to be utterly impossible to _stage_. As green as he was at the playwright’s craft, Hamlet could see that it would not be possible for Amleth to ride a horse backwards across the stage, nor could he very well encounter a wolf when all they had was a very small terrier. As for the scene in which Amleth’s friend sent him a secret message by fastening a straw to the nether parts of a gadfly – well, Hamlet amused himself for a few moments by drawing ingenious flying machines in the margins of the book, but none of them seemed remotely practical.

_Then_ there was the bit where Amleth ravished his foster-sister in a fen while lying upon a horse’s hoof, a coxcomb, and a piece of the ceiling. _That_ would certainly have the Master of Revels upon them for public indecency if they tried to show it on stage.

Yet for all of its absurdities, Hamlet found the tale deeply compelling. Amleth had a cause for revenge that was uncannily like his own, and yet he had succeeded at everything at which Hamlet had made such a notable mess of. Amleth set fire to the palace, killed his uncle-father along with all his followers, told his tale to the people and was _believed_. He had just been acclaimed king, publicly and to great applause, when Hamlet felt the need to put the book aside.

* * *

Thomas had fallen into a restless, troubled sleep around midnight, his head full of plague-hospitals and the groans of the dying. Prince Hamlet was still sitting at the writing-desk in their room, a candle burning before him.

The prince spoke, and Thomas jerked awake. “What, my lord?”

Hamlet started. “Oh! Did I speak aloud?”

“Yes. You said ‘How all occasions do inform against me.’ What did you mean by that?”

“I meant nothing. You were eavesdropping.”

“I was _sleeping_ ,” said Thomas. “When people go around saying ‘How all occasions do inform against me’ in the middle of the night for no discernable reason, they tend to wake other people up.”

“I was thinking only of something I read in this book.”

“The book Judit’s father gave you?”

“Yes.”

“It is very late. You would do better to go to bed.”

“In good time, in good time.” Hamlet turned back to his book. There was, Thomas noted, a feverish flush on his cheek, and his movements were restless. Thomas began to consider diagnoses: there were several diseases of the mind that could cause men to speak or cry aloud, sometimes unaware that they were doing it...

In contemplating these things, Thomas completely forgot about the plague, and fell asleep again.

* * *

Prince Hamlet turned up for their practice session promptly, right after breakfast. Thomas was not sure he had actually _slept_ – in fact, to judge from the number of burnt candle-ends and blotted sheets of paper littering their room, he probably had not – but at least he was there, and seemed to be game.

“How is your swordplay?” Thomas asked.

“Fair enough,” said Hamlet.

“Let’s see.” Thomas handed Hamlet a sword and dagger, taking up another pair for himself. “I think you said you had seen _Aeneas, Lord of Troy?_ Let’s begin with the last scene. You play Turnus, and I will be Aeneas. Have at you, Tuscan dog!”

Thomas quickly realized that “fair enough” was an extremely modest description of his opponent’s actual abilities. He was not a bad swordsman himself, but the damned prince moved like lightning, his blade popping up in places that seemed to be physically impossible. Moreover, Hamlet seemed to have entirely forgotten about the dramatic situation they were supposed to be portraying; the fight went on _and_ on, and his opponent made none of the moves that players whose characters were doomed normally used to set up a plausible-looking defeat. Nor did he leave Aeneas a single opening. Thomas finally had to give up in exhaustion.

“Not bad for your first time,” Thomas gasped, “but you were supposed to _lose_. You’re Turnus, remember? You do know how to lose?”

“Of course I know how to lose! I’ve lost a thousand times to Laertes.”

_Laertes?_ Well, no _wonder_ the prince had underrated his own gifts. Thomas knew of the Lord Chamberlain’s son by report; everyone did; he was said to be the greatest fencer of his generation in all of Europe, perhaps the greatest in a century. “But – do you know how to lose _on purpose?_ ”

“Oh. I guess not. You must teach me, I think, when we have rested.”

Thomas turned to Judit, who had been leaning forward on one of the benches watching them fight. Much to his annoyance, she had risen to her feet and applauded at the climax. “I had thought _you_ had better sense! Why did you not prompt him to lose? How often have you told me that the play is everything?”

“‘Twas not a real play,” she said, “and ‘twas worth applause. I would not have interrupted him for the world. Besides, I never did like Aeneas. He knew not how to treat a woman, and I was not sorry to see him lose for once.”

Thomas threw his sword down and paced deliberately to the edge of the stage – lest he do something to his sovereign lord that he might regret. He swore.

“Th’art not thyself, Thomas,” said Judit, with more gentleness than was her custom. “This plague is weighing heavy on thy mind.”

This, he realized, was true. Most of the anger he felt was not for Hamlet, nor even for Judit, but for the men and women he had known in the last plague: the wretches who fled, in defiance of the quarantine, and carried the infection from town to town; the bailiffs who walled up the healthy along with the sick and left them to die of starvation if the pestilence did not carry them off first; the brutes who went looking for a scapegoat and fired the houses of old women they imagined to be witches; the physicians who _would not listen_ to Thomas, and had expelled him from their ranks rather than admit he had noticed patterns they had not...

He drew a breath, remembered that most of them were dead, and splashed some water on his face from the bucket Judit had left at the corner of the stage. He had another profession now, and it was, on the whole, a more honorable trade than physician. At least players were _honest_ about the fact that they sold pretty lies that did nothing to relieve real human suffering.

Meanwhile, Judit had already turned to Hamlet, bubbling over with excitement. “They’ll come to see _that_ , I’ll warrant you, were you never so poor a player! We must play _Achilles and Hector_ as soon as the plague is over; you can start learning your part this afternoon.”

“I was,” said Thomas, “under the impression that your _father_ was head of this company. You have told me so many times, in fact. Which means _you_ are not.”

He regretted the words almost as soon as he had spoken him, since Judit went red in the face and recoiled as though he had slapped her. “And _you_ may never be head of the company, either, if I choose not to make you so!”

“I care not!” said Thomas – which was true as far as it went, since heading a company of players had never been a particular ambition of his. But inwardly, he felt sick and hollow.

Prince Hamlet was trying, simultaneously, to pretend that he was ignoring this bit of byplay and remind them that he was there. As this was more or less an impossible task, Thomas could not really fault him for the fact that he accomplished only the second part. He whistled a few lines of “Fortune My Foe,” ran his thumb experimentally along the blade of his sword, and remarked, “They’re blunted like practice-swords, I see. ‘Twould be an ingenious way to commit a murder, to substitute a sword with a sharp edge, and make another man do the deed in all innocence.”

“Do you spend much time thinking about ingenious ways to commit murder?” Thomas demanded.

“‘Twas only a passing fancy. Come, teach me how to lose.”

Thomas stood stone still and glared at the prince. “You have _very_ strange fancies,” he said.


	3. I Could Condemn It as an Improbable Fiction

Hamlet clutched his forehead.

The second half of _Amleth, Prince of Denmark_ – in which Amleth escaped the treachery of his father-in-law, committed bigamy, and propped up dead corpses to make it seem as if his army had greater numbers – was going to be even more impossible to adapt for the stage than the first half. By the time Amleth had finally been slain by Wiglek, and his beloved wife Hermentrude had yielded herself up to be the conqueror’s spoil, Hamlet had developed a raging headache. If he were to adapt the play faithfully, it would be about six hours long and would please no one – and because Amleth had chosen to kill his uncle’s retainers by fire, they’d probably have to burn their scaffold to the ground halfway through and perform the rest of the play on the ashes.

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” said Hamlet.

Thank God, it was Karl, not Frederik. “Burning the midnight lamp, I see? How are you getting on with the play?”

“So-so,” said Hamlet.

“Have some wine.” Karl produced a bottle. “It helps the words flow.”

Hamlet accepted half a glass – he had particular reasons to avoid heavy drinking – and said, “I think Frederik has set me another impossible task.”

“That is very like,” Karl admitted.

“He seemed to like me well enough when I was a prince. I must remember that what men say to princes has little to do with what is in their hearts. ‘Tis better this way; I had rather have truth than flattery.”

“He _did_ like you well enough when you were a prince,” said Karl. “He has often said so. It is only that he knows not what to do with you now that you are a player, and so he hopes you will give it up and go home so that things can be as they were.”

Hamlet smiled and shook his head. “They cannot be as they were. It is impossible. Soon enough you will understand why.”

“So you will not turn back.”

“No. So I have no choice but to write this play.”

“Good luck. If you are in difficulties over the plot, have one of the characters put to sea and be taken by pirates; that nearly always helps. Oh, and try to make it comical-tragical-historical-pastoral, if you can. That is the present fashion.”

“I could try. I don’t see much _pastoral_ about it.”

“Love in a fen?”

“What sort of shepherd would willingly go into a fen?” Hamlet didn’t know much about shepherding, but he was fairly sure this would be a good way to drown your sheep.

“Pastoral does not always mean ‘with sheep.’ It is – It is more of a _state of mind_. You know – song and dance, and lovelorn swains and maidens gathering flowers.”

“So if one of the characters went _completely mad_ , and started singing and dancing and gathering flowers, that would be pastoral even if they were in a castle?”

Karl considered this for a moment, and finally said that he wasn’t sure, but you could never have too many mad scenes in a play, so Hamlet might as well try it out and see how it went over. “You might put in an elegy if you wanted to make it a bit more pastoral,” he suggested. “Willows weeping over the glassy stream, and that sort of thing.”

Somewhat bewildered, Hamlet did his best to follow these instructions.

* * *

Thomas, meanwhile, was drinking in the taproom. The chamber he shared with Prince Hamlet was in another wing of the inn; he could see the light in the window, although the hour was already very late, and so he lingered and ordered up another stoup of wine. He didn’t want to talk to Hamlet. He was aware that the prince hadn’t actually _done_ anything to him, and had in fact behaved with perfect courtesy when Thomas himself had been on the verge of making a very embarrassing scene, but that almost made it worse.

“How now, Thomas? D’you mind if I join you?”

Thomas slid over and made room for Hans on the bench.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. What makes you think something’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Only I’ve never known you to get drunk alone before.”

“I am not in a company-keeping humor tonight. No, stay. I’ll try to be.”

Hans poured himself a drink and waited.

“Have you seen Judit with – with our new fellow?”

“Afraid that he may cut you out? I would not worry about it. Frederik would hardly give his consent, and I think he’s settled in his own mind that you’re to be his successor, whether Judit will have you or no. He _certainly_ would not dream of handing over the company to a man who’s greener at this trade than Alexander.”

“ _Why_ does everyone think I am marrying Judit so I can inherit Prince Hamlet’s Men?” Thomas demanded with some asperity. “I don’t give a straw for being head of the company. The truth is, it’s exactly the other way around. _She’s_ marrying me so _she_ can be head of the company, in fact if not in name.” It stung him to admit it, but he was fairly sure that it was true.

Hans thought about this for a moment. “She’d be rather good at it.”

“I know. I’m more than willing to let her.”

“Where is the trouble, then?” asked Hans. “You remain the heir apparent to the company; our fellow Francisco is merely heir apparent to the kingdom, _if_ he ever gets around to claiming it – and that means Judit will choose you when the stakes are down, no matter how much he may have turned her head for the moment. I’ve known her since we were eleven years old. I’m sure of it.”

“It is not enough.” Thomas took another gulp of wine, although the taproom was already beginning to sway alarmingly. “That is not _why_ I want her to choose me.”

“Oh – damn. You’re in _love_ with the fair Judit, then?”

“Yes.”

“That’s bad.” Hans shook his head sympathetically. “You should never fall in love where you have business. It only leads to heartache.”

“What are you doing with Karl, then?”

“It is _different_ between two men. There is no question of marriage, which, properly done, is far more of a business arrangement than being a shareholder in a company of actors.”

“Then I do not _want_ to do it properly,” said Thomas. “I want to know that she chose me of her own free will, and not because of what I could give her. Is that so much to ask? It is no more than every poor shepherd or plowman has.”

“Are you saying you would leave the company to become a shepherd or plowman?”

“ _That_ ,” said Thomas, “is not the point.”

* * *

It was very late when the light in the chamber window went out, and Thomas finally stumbled upstairs and threw himself down on the bed, his shirt and breeches still on. It was some time after that when the noises in the room awoke him. The wine had made him thick-headed and stupid, and it took him a moment to realize that Prince Hamlet was in the grip of a nightmare.

He reached for his tinder-box and a sulfur match, and struck a light. 

“Brimstone,” murmured the prince. “Father!”

“Sh-h-h.” Thomas lit a candle. “‘Tis well. Everything is well. Wake up.”

Hamlet’s eyes were open, but Thomas was not sure how much he saw. He gripped the prince’s shoulder cautiously, which turned out to be a bad idea, because Hamlet cried “AAAAGHH!” and vaulted out of bed. On the other hand, he did wake up, which was what Thomas had been trying to accomplish.

“I, I, I, I beg you pardon me,” stammered Hamlet. “I mistook you. Er, for one of the demons of hell.”

“You flatter me, my lord.”

Hamlet managed a feeble smile, and shook his head. “Not ‘my lord.’ No more.” He sat down on the edge of the bed, his hands shaking.

Thomas had never intended to practice medicine again, apart from treating the minor injuries that the players inevitably sustained in the course of their profession. But there was no question he had a patient on his hands now, and his physician’s instincts took over. He opened his medicine chest and poured a generous measure from one of the bottles. “Drink,” he said firmly.

“Will it help?”

“Yes,” said Thomas, by which he meant “maybe.” The stuff was merely aqua-vitae flavored with bitter herbs, and Thomas suspected that its benefits came from its tendency to loosen the patient’s tongue, rather than any medicinal properties of the herbs themselves. But it sometimes worked, and he had damned little else that did anything for diseases of the mind at all.

What did help, sometimes, was getting the patient to confide his troubles; only there was no particular reason why Hamlet should want to confide in Thomas. Actually, he had a very good reason _not_ to want to confide in Thomas. Thomas thought back to the aftermath of their rehearsal that morning, and wished he had acted more politely.

But then, Hans and Karl and Henrik had treated the prince with perfect courtesy, and had gotten nothing more than a smile and a word of thanks out of him – not even an explanation of why he had joined their company. No, if Hamlet told anyone what was troubling him, it would be Judit. Oh _damn_. 

And – because every now and then life worked like the theater, with people entering pat on cue – there was a soft rap at the chamber door, and when Thomas went to open it, there stood Judit with a playbook.

“I saw a light,” she explained, “and I thought, since you were both awake, we might look over the script for _Achilles and Hector_. The part with Ajax and the goat will have to be cut, I think, ‘tis an old device and the jokes are stale, and besides, Father sold the goat a year ago. Might we write a new scene for Achilles and Polixena instead? Love stories please the city audiences well.”

_Typical_ , thought Thomas. _Other_ men’s brides-to-be slipped into their lovers’ chambers at night to offer them their virginity, or at least a kiss or two. Judit came to talk about plays. Or worse yet, perhaps she came to see Prince Hamlet and the play was only a pretext.

“With yourself playing Polixena to our fellow Francisco’s Achilles, I suppose?” Thomas realized too late that he was sneering. He must master himself.

“No,” said Judit sadly, “Father would never allow it. He was _furious_ after I took Alexander’s place yesterday, and said that I must never act again.”

_Good_ , thought Thomas, and then felt ashamed of himself, because Judit looked genuinely distraught. God, he was turning into an ass. Petty, easily jealous ... Neglecting his duty to his patient, too. “Excuse me,” he said. “I think I hear one calling for me below. I will see what he wants. Judit, stay here a moment.”

He sprinted down the corridor toward the stairs, leaving Hamlet and Judit alone together.

He waited a minute or two, and then returned. They were still staring at each other, bewildered. He grabbed his cloak and his medicine-chest, pouring another generous measure of the cordial for Hamlet, and said, “There is a man dying of plague in the next house, and I am summoned to do what I can for him. I may be some time.”

“Must you go?” Judit asked. “I thought you had sworn off medicine forever.”

“It is my duty,” said Thomas, with difficulty, and turned away and went out.

* * *

As soon as he had gone, Hamlet whirled around and demanded of Judit, “Are you his intelligencer?”

“Whose, my lord?” asked Judit, feeling instinctively that the question had come from Hamlet the prince and not Francisco the player.

“Thomas’s. No, Polonius the Lord Chamberlain. O God!” Hamlet sank down on the edge of the bed, clutching his head as if he feared it might explode. “No, of course you are not a spy. Forgive me; of late I see spies everywhere. Judit ... I think I may be mad.”

This put Hamlet in the company of about half of Denmark, but it didn’t seem polite to say so. “What makes you say that, my lord?” Judit asked.

“Never mind. No, I will tell you, if you swear not to speak of it. By the way, he _is_ lying about the plague, you know.”

“Who? Thomas?”

“Yes. Thomas _and_ Polonius, as it happens.”

“Thomas does not know Polonius,” said Judit, now convinced that the rumors about Prince Hamlet’s madness were nothing less than the plain truth. “He’d never met him before we came to Elsinore, and I do not think they exchanged three words while we were there.”

“No. I mean that Thomas must be using the plague as a ruse to leave us. There is no plague. ‘Tis an invention of Polonius’s, though Thomas knows it not.”

Judit stared at him. This was clearly absurd. Thomas was not a liar. And to judge by his behavior these last few days, the _last_ thing he wanted was to leave her alone with the prince.

Hygenia stirred and snorted in her sleep. _Hygenia_. The little dog had been named for the Greek goddess of health and sanitation. Thomas maintained that people who kept terriers often came through a plague unscathed while their neighbors died. It was ridiculous, like most of his theories, but Judit was very sure that if he had been called out to tend a plague victim, he would have taken her with him.

“But _why_ should Polonius invent a plague?” she asked, trying to distract herself from wondering why Thomas should lie.

“To keep the people in their houses, and to provide a plausible cover for King Claudius not to be seen in public. The king is dead, and Polonius would not have it be known.”

“Did you kill him, my lord?”

Hamlet started. “Why do you ask?”

“You had blood on your garments when you came to us. And then you hid them in the trunk with the shields and helmets and the head of Mary Queen of Scots.”

“You found them?”

“I _am_ the company’s properties mistress, Francisco. Did you think I would not notice?”

“And you told no one?”

Judit shook her head.

Hamlet regarded her in silence for a moment, and seemed to decide that she could be trusted. “I know not whether I killed the king. I must ask you to trust me when I say that _if_ I did, I had good and weighty reasons for it. Your trust, by the way, will help you not at all if Polonius and his intelligencers learn that you have been giving me shelter.” He began to pace back and forth across the room. “O God, you and your friends had a bad bargain when you allowed me to join your company. If you are arrested, you must say you knew nothing of this. If they should find that you did know, beg an audience with my mother and tell her that you allowed your loyalty to me to outweigh your duty as a subject; that is your best hope.”

Judit had only been half-attending to the second part of this speech. “You _know not_ whether you killed the king?”

“It happened this way. I went to the chapel after the play. I went there with a thought of killing him – for, as I told you, I had a weighty reason. He was on his knees as though he were praying, with his head resting upon the altar-rail. I remember that I stepped nearer. I thought I might do it easily while he was praying. And then –” Hamlet shook his head violently. “The next thing I remember, I was standing over him, and he was dead. I touched him. His blood was still warm and flowing. There was a dagger lying on the floor – there was too much blood on it for me to know whether it was mine, but I suppose it must have been, and I must have killed him. But wherefore do I not remember?”

“I know not, my lord,” said Judit. This story, more than anything else the prince had said, sounded like it ought to have been the ravings of a madman; but somehow it left her with a forcible impression of the prince’s sanity. “But – but – Your majesty!” She dropped to her knees, realizing the full implications of Hamlet’s story.

“You had better rise, and spare your gown. The floor’s none too clean, and I am not the king, nor am I like to be. The electors would never choose me, and I am of their mind, for what sort of king cuts a man’s throat in a dream and then remembers nothing of the act?”

“And so ... you joined a company of players instead?”

“It seemed a reasonable thing to do at the time. I am not sure I remember why.”

Judit sat down on Thomas’s bed, suddenly overcome by a fit of giggles. “My _lord!_ You have far too poor a memory to be a player, I think!”

“I _was_ accounted a good player,” said Hamlet ruefully. “We used to have Christmas revels at Wittenberg, and I ... Well, let that be. ‘Twas another country, and I am now become somebody else. We would both do well to remember that.”

* * *

The morning was well advanced, but Hamlet had not been down to breakfast. Thomas said he was sleeping, and ought not to be disturbed.

Judit half-wondered whether she had dreamed the previous night’s events. Thomas looked rather haggard, but he said nothing to the others, and gave no sign that he had been out late. He was sitting in the common room, chatting with the innkeeper and old Henrik.

He wouldn’t be there, Judit realized abruptly, if he had been tending to a plague victim last night. Plague doctors kept well away from company. She could see Hamlet’s face again, white and staring. _There is no plague_. He had looked like a madman, but it seemed that he had been telling the truth and Thomas had been lying, and Judit didn’t know _what_ to think.

“Thomas?” she called when he came away from the others.

“What is it, love?”

She looked at him. She had meant to ask him how his patient fared, but she found, suddenly, that she didn’t _want_ to put his honesty to the test.

“Is it possible for a man to do a thing and remember nothing of it afterward?” she asked instead.

“Of course,” said Thomas. “I remember nothing of where I put my cloak-bag, for instance. Have you seen it?”

“I mean a thing of grave importance. Could a man – Could he fight a duel, let us say, or steal something very valuable, and remember nothing?”

“I have heard of cases of sleepwalkers...”

“Suppose he were not sleepwalking, but broad awake.”

“I do not know. I have heard, also, that those who have had a great shock, or who have seen horrors, as on the battlefield – Sometimes they lose their memory of the event.”

“Are such people mad?”

“In all other things they are as sane as you or I.”

Thomas did _not_ ask Judit why she had asked the question, and she had the uncomfortable feeling she had already betrayed Prince Hamlet’s confidence. She nodded, and turned to go.

“Judit –”

“What?”

A party of rowdy young men came into the common room and began calling for sack and sugar. “Never mind,” said Thomas, over the noise of the strangers. “I’ll explain another time.”

* * *

“Monsieur Laertes?”

“Yes?”

“I have a letter for you. From Denmark.”

Laertes tipped the boy a couple of sous and opened the letter. It was completely blank. This would have flummoxed some recipients, but not Laertes, who was well aware of his father’s penchant for invisible ink. He hoped Polonius had used something other than urine as a base, and then recollected that one of the other possibilities was semen.

Back in his chambers, he passed the paper over a candle flame until his father’s writing appeared.

_Come home at once. The king is dead. Prince Hamlet fled. ‘Tis thought he slew King Claudius in his madness. These times may make our fortunes, or destroy them forever. Thy loving father, Polonius._

This was, Laertes thought, surely the shortest letter that Polonius had written in his life – by a margin of about ten pages. Then he noticed that another line of writing had appeared. Ah. Of course Father hadn’t been able to resist adding a postscript.

_Ophelia is missing. I fear she has fled with Prince Hamlet. Find her and do whatever you must to preserve her good name._

Laertes went pale, pulled on his cloak and riding-boots, and scribbled a hasty note to the two friends who shared his lodgings. Within a quarter of an hour, he was on his way to Rouen, there to catch the next ship to Denmark.


	4. The Actors Are Come Hither

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In order to differentiate between the _Hamlet_ canon characters in the story itself and the ones in Hamlet's play about Prince Amleth, I have used some names from the First Quarto of _Hamlet_ (e.g., Corambis for Polonius) as well as some from Saxo Grammaticus's version of the story (Amleth for the prince, Feng for Claudius, etc.) The play _itself_ is, however, meant to be the version of _Hamlet_ we all know.
> 
> If you're wondering what the English players are talking about, see [here](http://theshakespeareblog.com/2014/02/shakespeares-richard-ii-and-the-essex-rebellion/) for a brief account of their role in Essex's Rebellion.

Hamlet opened his eyes and sat up. It was full daylight, nearer noon than sunrise to judge by the angle of the sun, and – Good _God_. He wondered what had possessed him to spill the story of what had happened in the chapel to Judit, after days of keeping a close guard on his tongue. The stuff Thomas had given him must have been pure liquor.

Whatever it was, it had done him some good. He had slept soundly, without bad dreams, for almost the first time since his father’s ghost had walked the battlements.

He wanted to talk to Judit again and tell her everything. No, he didn’t. He wanted to write it all out. He went to the desk, not bothering to dress, and reached for his pen and ink.

* * *

It was even-tide before Hamlet stopped writing for longer than it took to mend his pen, or to track down the inn’s chambermaid and demand more ink. She brought pippins and bread and cheese as well, which he supposed he must have eaten as there was nothing left but the apple-cores, but he couldn’t remember anything about it. He wondered if that was a sign of advancing madness. He must write it all straightway, before he lost his mind.

Without really meaning to, he found himself making Prince Amleth wittier than he himself was; the play included several lines he only _wished_ he’d said to Polonius. But all the rest of it was true: the ghost come from the grave, the king’s treachery, his mother’s faithlessness, the coming of the players.

Only, of course, Prince Amleth had not run away like a coward as soon as he had taken his revenge. He _had_ killed his uncle’s intelligencer, and had then reproached his mother so furiously and heartrendingly that she had walked in the paths of virtue from then on. Well, that would not be a difficult scene to write. Hamlet began to set down everything he wished he had said to his mother.

To his annoyance, setting his mother on the paths of virtue proved to be more complicated than he had anticipated. The problem was that she kept talking _back_. And somehow, the foolish eavesdropper Corambis insisted on getting himself killed by accident, instead of by a decisive stroke of Amleth’s.

He’d set out to make Amleth a better and braver and more resolute version of himself, but the fellow was starting to seem much too familiar. Damn him.

He reached for _The History of Amleth_ again.

_Then, cutting his body into morsels, he seethed it in boiling water, and flung it through the mouth of an open sewer for the swine to eat, bestrewing the stinking mire with his hapless limbs._

Amleth had done _what_ to the eavesdropper? How had he missed that the first time around? Hamlet shoved the book aside in disgust, just as Thomas came into the room.

“Tell me,” said Hamlet absently, “what would you think of a man who, having killed a foolish meddler by accident, cut the body into pieces, stewed it, and fed it to the pigs?”

“I would think it a waste,” said Thomas, equally absently. “If he meant to desecrate the corpse, he might have done better to draw it apart and use it for an anatomy. In Bologna it cost us a hundred florins to bribe the hangman, that we might learn the secrets of the human body.”

“ _That_ is an idea,” said Hamlet. He reached for his pen again and began writing energetically.

“Er,” said Thomas. “Are you feeling well?”

“Very well, thank you,” said Hamlet. He stopped writing abruptly and turned to face Thomas. “Er, are _you?_ ”

“Oh, yes. You must not mind me; physicians are used to speaking lightly of things that horrify ordinary people.”

“I meant – you do not think you have caught the plague?”

“Oh! Plague. Yes, you are right, I had better keep clear of you and the others.” Thomas moved toward the door.

“No, stay,” said Hamlet. “How does your patient?”

“He lives yet.”

“Has he the ordinary kind of plague with the swellings, or has it settled in his lungs?”

“The ordinary kind,” said Thomas, after the briefest of pauses. He had paused before his last answer too, and he had glanced upward, as if he had imagined the answers to Hamlet’s questions to be written on the ceiling.

Over the last few months, Hamlet had made enough observations to write a treatise about lying. Most men, he learned, had some gesture or nervous habit that gave them away – save for his uncle Claudius, who could lie to the devil himself without blinking, and was probably doing so at this very moment.

“Tell me, do you believe in opening the swellings, or in applying poultices and bleeding the patient?”

This time there was no hesitation. “It is sometimes possible to save the patient’s life by lancing the swellings and letting the foul matter drain. Bleeding has no effect at all – on plague, or on most other diseases for that matter. I verily believe it is the greatest superstition in Christendom.”

“In what street does your patient lie?”

Pause. Look up. “In Broad Street, near the Church of St. Luke.”

Hamlet looked at him with narrowed eyes. “While you, for your part, lie here and now.”

“Sir?”

“You said last night that he was in the next house.”

Thomas had the decency to blush. “My lord, I pray you pardon me. If I deceived you and Judit last night, ‘twas for a good end.”

“What end?”

“Only to induce you to speak with her. I have not asked her to reveal anything you said, nor do I intend to.” _No pause, eyes steady. Not lying._ “I thought you more likely to confide in her than in me; that is all.” _Still not lying, but it cost him something to make the admission._

“Why should you care whether I confide in her, if you do not intend to get what I said out of her sooner or later?”

“It is – It is as I said about plague. One lets foul matter drain. In this case, if one suspects a patient is troubled in his mind and heart, the best thing is to induce him to speak of it.”

Hamlet had not been expecting this answer, and it brought him up short. “You are thinking of me as your patient, then?”

“Last night you were in no condition for me to think of you any other way.”

Hamlet thought back to the previous night – remembering, above all, the strained voice in which Thomas had said it was his duty to go. He was beginning to take the measure of the man, and he thought he would like to know more of him. “You seem,” he remarked, “to be rather a good physician. What made you decide to become a player instead?”

“What made _you_ decide to become a player instead of a prince?” Thomas countered.

“I was not much good at being a prince.”

“‘Twas the same with me. The other members of the College of Physicians did not seem to think I was good enough to be one of them.”

“Because of your theories about the plague?”

“Yes.”

It occurred to Hamlet that if he had chosen to _stay_ a prince, if he had faced out the aftermath of his uncle’s death and if the electors had believed his story and made him king, he could have found a place for Thomas at court. And then the College of Physicians would have been begging Thomas to rejoin their ranks. Yes, he might have done some good as a king. It was too late now.

“Could you explain your ideas to me? Why is it that you eat no pork, for example?”

“Ah. It is said that the plague strikes less often among Jews than Christians, and from what I have observed, I believe it may be true. Now, when Christians notice this, the only conclusion they ever seem to draw is that they should massacre the Jews, never that they might have something to learn from them. So: what do the Jews do that we do not, or what do we do that they do not? They do not eat pork, of course; they do not work on Saturdays, which seems to me a fine practice and worthy of emulation; and they are, frankly, cleaner than we are.”

“Is there nothing else they do differently?” Hamlet inquired with exaggerated innocence.

“Well – yes – but _you_ try persuading Christian men to try it!”

“I would not dream of it. Would you try it, yourself?”

“My English friend, Master Bacon, says that to learn the truth about a phenomenon that may have many possible causes, one must experiment by isolating them from one another and testing one at a time, insofar as that is possible. When that phenomenon is plague, it seems best to test them in the negative rather than the positive sense – that is, by taking every possible precaution except one. At present, I am testing circumcision. If it should prove to be the one cause that prevents the plague, it will be a great discovery.”

“If it should prove to be the one cause that prevents the plague, would you not already be dead?”

“Science,” said Thomas piously, “always requires a certain measure of sacrifice.”

* * *

Thomas was surprised to find himself enjoying his conversation with the prince. It was plain that Hamlet actually _wanted_ to hear his theories of the plague, which was rare enough in itself, and moreover, he seemed to know something about medicine, and while he raised some skeptical questions, he was not inclined to dismiss Thomas’s ideas out of hand.

They talked so long that they missed the usual supper-hour; by the time they noticed they were both starving, the taproom at the inn had emptied of everyone except for a party of seven or eight strangers, talking loudly in a foreign tongue. Thomas asked the innkeeper whether there was anything left to eat.

“Oh, aye,” said the innkeeper. “There are some roast fowl left over from supper. The cook was about to make them into a chicken bardolph for tomorrow, but you may have one of them for two shillings. I must make a profit one way or another, and the cook can thicken the bardolph with rice, and so piece it out.”

“Bardolph!” repeated one of the foreigners in a thick accent. He clapped one of his companions on the shoulder, and they all fell about the table laughing uproariously.

“Who are those people?” asked Thomas.

“Englishmen,” said the innkeeper. “They came this afternoon; I wonder that they were able to travel because of the quarantine, but they say that nobody stopped them from disembarking. Or so I think they said. They speak no Danish, and very little German. They are of your profession.”

“They are physicians?”

“No, they are English actors. ‘Tis enough to drive a man mad, an inn full of players and no possibility of a play, and yet I have not heard of a single case of plague here or in any of the neighboring towns. If the quarantine goes on for another week, I have half a mind to defy it.”

“ _Would_ you?” Thomas asked eagerly. The company’s coffers were almost empty; between the plague, the king’s death, and the competition from the boy actors, it had been a very bad year.

“Yes. It must be done quietly, and soon, lest the bailiff hear of it. Would your company be ready? If not, perhaps the English players know a farce or jig that will not suffer for being in a foreign tongue.”

“We’ll be ready,” said Thomas without hesitation, hoping that it was true. He knew that both Frederik and Judit would have said yes, so it was not his part to say no.

“We have a new play,” Hamlet offered, “one that has not been seen in the city.”

Thomas kicked him under the table. “We _have?_ ” he asked in an undertone once the innkeeper was out of earshot.

“We _will_ have,” amended Hamlet.

As he knew very well that the illegible and heavily-blotted papers that comprised the new play were currently scattered all over their room, Thomas was not entirely inclined to share his companion’s confidence.

* * *

The English players, meanwhile, were having troubles of their own.

Richard, the head of the company, was nearly out of patience. “If you would but _try_ it, Will, I believe it would be better than you think.”

Will shook his head. “I am no tragedian.”

“You have written, by my count, a dozen tragedies before this!”

“ _Histories_. There was not a plot among them that did not come out of a chronicle. And you heard what the queen said: no more Richards, no more Henrys, and no more Caesars.”

“That leaves a brace of Williams, a Stephen, and a whole mess of Edwards,” observed Robin.

Richard glared at him. “Peace, fool. The queen is not like to welcome a play on any of those subjects. _Especially_ not the Stephen.”

“Why, man, have you not read your history? None of them was a subject.”

“That’s the trouble, fool!”

“I still do not understand what was wrong with the last Henry,” said Lawrence. “I never heard that the battle of Agincourt was dangerous matter.”

“‘Bringing rebellion broached upon his sword,’” explained Augustine, who had done heroic work in defending the company before the Privy Council. “Not the most politic choice of words, in retrospect. _Especially_ since Her Majesty was inclined to suspect a double meaning.”

There was a brief silence.

“So,” said Will, “she will have no more kings or Caesars, and no more comedies, for she is not in a laughing humor. What is left, I ask you? Some other man must write it, for a tragedy with no kings in it is beyond my power of invention.”

“What d’you call _Romeo and Juliet_ , then?” demanded Richard.

“A comedy,” said Will, “with an unhappy ending.”

There was general laughter. Richard was about to retort that this was absurd and that Will was just being stubborn, when he realized that his best playwright was genuinely spooked. No wonder; they all were. Augustine had not stopped shaking since his examination. Richard had thought it best to take his whole company on a pleasure-trip to Denmark, a destination he had chosen mainly because it was said to be an excellent place to get drunk.

“Never mind,” he said, “we’ll talk of it some other time. Tapster!” he added in broken German, “another stoup of wine all around.”

* * *

Thomas examined the blizzard of papers that littered the room. They had the remains of the capon and a bottle of wine to sustain them during their night’s work, and he had begged a couple of extra quills and a great many candles from the innkeeper. He tossed a handful of pebbles across the courtyard at Judit’s window, and was rewarded a few minutes later with a knock at the door.

“Thomas, what now? ‘Tis almost midnight.”

Thomas handed her a quill and a sheaf of paper. “And we have a week to put on a new play. You and I must put the pages in their proper order and copy out the parts, while Prince Hamlet finishes writing it.”

“ _Finishes_ writing it?” asked Judit, looking around the room dubiously. “It looks quite long enough already. Are you sure it is not finished now?”

Hamlet explained that most of the characters were still alive, and he would know when he was finished because they would be dead.

* * *

“Does this say ‘he smote the leaded pole-ax’ or ‘sledded Polacks’?” asked Thomas.

Hamlet frowned. “Do you know, I do not entirely remember. Does it matter?”

“It does to the Polacks! I’m sure they care whether they are being smote!”

“They are imaginary. Air-drawn Polacks. Or possibly an air-drawn pole-ax. What you will.”

“It _also_ matters to the actor who has to speak the line,” said Judit.

“Tell him to choose one or the other. I care not.”

“How about this line?” Judit asked. “‘Sallied’ or ‘sullied’?”

“‘Solid,’ of course.”

“I _wish_ the nobility would learn how to write secretary hand.”

Hamlet seemed to be struck by this remark. “That is a very good idea. Do you mind if I make use of it in the scene where Amleth tells of his adventure with the pirates?”

“Of secretary hand? Yes, _please_ do.”

“No, no, of the _idea_.”

_Pirates?_ Thomas wondered. He didn’t recall any pirates in _The History of Amleth_ , but then, he hadn’t read it since he was a schoolboy. But Hamlet was already writing furiously.

* * *

Judit was right: the play had grown impossibly long already. Hamlet slashed ruthlessly away at the second half of _The History of Amleth_ , eliminating both of Amleth’s wives, the king of England’s treachery, and the final battle. On the whole, he thought, his own ending was better anyhow. Debts were paid; vengeance carried a heavy price; there would be no triumphal speech, no crown, and no marriage bed (let alone two of them) for his hero. It ended as a proper revenge tragedy should, in a pile of bodies and a dead march.

“This is _good_ ,” said Judit. She was sitting on the edge of Thomas’s bed, reading the last few pages Hamlet had written in the rosy light of dawn. “I was not sure it would please the people at first, but it is very good. Dost not think so, Thomas?”

“What?” said Thomas, who was copying out the king’s part. “Oh ... yes. Very good indeed.” He seemed distracted, and he had been glancing up at Hamlet from time to time with a peculiar expression.

Hamlet realized that he might have put _too_ much of his own cause into the play. Well. It was done, and it had very nearly written itself; he could not help it.

“And now to the parts,” said Judit. “Thomas must play Prince Amleth, of course, and Father the king.”

It had not occurred to Hamlet that _he_ would not play Prince Amleth, but of course Judit knew the company better than he did, and his one dramatic role had not been a notable success. He did not protest.

“Maximilian must play the queen, for that will take some skill; Alexander will do well enough for the other lady. Everything else must be doubled and tripled, for we have but four men to play the remaining parts! Let me see, let me see, there must be a way. But you might have thought of that before you began, my lord!”

Hamlet had never even thought about that side of things. He felt humbled by the things he didn’t know. “I am sorry.”

“No,” said Judit, flushed and smiling. “I would not have you change a word. We will find a way.”

* * *

Frederik was less enthusiastic. “This is too long. Did no one tell you how long a playscript ought to be?”

Hamlet added a bit of dialogue into the margin of the script, ending _It shall to the barber’s, with your beard_. “There. Now it is longer.” He glared at Frederik, and defied him to say anything more.

“Father, I know it is a strange play, but it _will_ please,” said Judit. “Thomas thinks so too.”

“Well, we’ll try it, since Thomas was so rash as to promise the innkeeper a new play. Better to fail in the provinces than in the city.”

“Thank you, Father!” Judit kissed Frederik on the cheek. “There is one other matter. I have divided the parts among six men and two boys, but for one thing. Both ladies must be in the audience during the scene with the players, but then who is to take the part of the Player-Queen?”

Frederik rolled his eyes and sighed. “‘Tis yours, wench, if you must have it so. Our patron knows the truth already, and you can hardly damage our credit any more than this unholy mess of a play will do.”

“Oh, _thank_ you!” Judit kissed him again and danced out of the room.


	5. What, a Play Towards?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone is curious about how to play _Hamlet_ with six men, two boys, and a bit of illicit help, here is Judit’s (and my) final cast list. Assorted soldiers, ladies, gentlemen, etc. may be played by whomever is free at any given moment. As indicated in my notes to the last chapter, most of the character names are from Q1 _Hamlet_ or Saxo Grammaticus.
> 
> Thomas – Amleth, Prince of Denmark  
> Frederik – Feng, King of Denmark; Marcellus  
> Maximilian – Gurutha, Queen of Denmark  
> Henrik – Ghost of King Horwendil; Corambis (Polonius); Player-Duke; Second Clown; priest; Braggart Gentleman (Osric)  
> Alexander – Ofelia, daughter to Corambis; Cornelia, ambassador to Norway  
> Hamlet – Sentinel; Montano, servant to Corambis; Rossencraft; Player-Poisoner; First Clown; Fortenbrasse  
> Hans – Voltimar, ambassador to Norway; Horatio  
> Karl – Barnardo; Leartes, son to Corambis; Gilderstone  
> Judit – Player-Duchess

“My _God_ ,” said Karl under his breath, as Thomas began the third of the five impossibly long soliloquies that Francisco had written. “ _That_ is why I thought Thomas reminded me of someone in this part. He’s playing Prince Amleth as if he were the prince – I mean, as if he were our fellow Francisco.”

“Sh-h-h,” said Judit. She was staring, riveted, at Thomas. Everyone was staring at Thomas. The innkeeper’s wife, who had been passing through the spare chamber where they were rehearsing, was standing in the back of the room, rapt. The mop and bucket she had been carrying lay at her feet, forgotten.

Alexander was sitting with his mouth open; Judit had to nudge him as the speech drew to a close. “‘Soft you’ is your cue, Alec. Remember, breathe deeply and do not be frightened.”

He wasn’t. He didn’t miss a line. He had a twelve-line soliloquy toward the end of the scene, and the company all held their breaths; but he was fine.

“‘Tis well writ,” said Hans. “Do you not think so?”

Judit nodded. Whatever Prince Hamlet’s shortcomings as an actor might be, he _did_ know how to shape a speech so that one line flowed from the next, and the quiet rhythms of the blank verse lay beneath it all like a heartbeat. It was still a difficult part – by all rights, far too difficult for a boy of eleven – and she thought with regret that she would have been able to do so much more with that speech, but Alec would be all right. 

Alec finished his speech, and the company began to breathe again as Father and Henrik stepped forward.

“ _Madness in great ones must not unwatch’d go_ ,” said Father, and the innkeeper’s wife shivered.

“ _Enough!_ ” said Father, breaking character. “Martha, where is the ale?”

Judit and her mother hurried to pour out tankards of ale for the exhausted players, and to slice the bread and cold meat they had brought for dinner.

“Noon already,” said Frederik, “and we are not halfway through. This is _far_ too long.”

“But it will go faster after the first rehearsal, and it is a good play,” said Henrik. “You _must_ own, Frederik, that it is a very good play.”

“It is an _impossible_ play. I know not how I am to play this confession of forty lines that he has written for Feng, and as for the play within a play – well! How does the pri – er, Francisco – imagine we are to place ourselves, so that the auditors may see both the play itself and the king’s reaction?”

“We have talked of this already, Father,” said Judit. “You and the Queen must sit at one side of the stage with Gilderstone behind you. Amleth, Ofelia, and Horatio will sit at the other side; the players will be in the middle, and it will be a simple matter for the auditors to see all. Now, the fencing match, I think, will be more difficult...”

A lively discussion of the staging for the fencing match followed, and it was not until after they had eaten that Judit remembered that Karl had been saying something about Thomas’s performance.

“You made some remark,” she asked, “about Thomas, when he was just beginning that speech about the undiscovered country. What was it?”

“Nothing,” said Karl. “Nothing that matters very much.”

* * *

Thomas was, in fact, playing Prince Amleth as Prince Hamlet. It had been impossible not to do so; once he had seen the resemblance, he could not _unsee_ it.

He had drawn certain conclusions as soon as he read the play-within-a-play scene. He meant to ask Hamlet about them, but there were only two or three scenes in which neither he nor Hamlet had to play a part, and the prince had been making himself scarce during the moments of the rehearsal when he was not needed, almost as if he dreaded having to watch his own play unfold. Which was another reason why Thomas was sure his conclusions were correct.

Secretive or not, though, Hamlet was not immune to the pride of authorship, and as soon as they were alone in their chambers that night, he asked Thomas, “What think you of the play?”

“Powerful,” said Thomas. “‘Twill please very well. The plot, of course, is quite beyond belief, but the auditors will not mind; the more absurd the story, the better the common folk like it. There is little enough truth in these old histories, I think.” (There, he thought; that would be bait enough to draw something out of the prince.)

“No?” said Hamlet. “Do you not believe in ghosts?”

“No,” said Thomas positively. “Do you?”

“One of the advantages of madness,” said Hamlet, “is that it can believe in a great many things that reason finds absurd.”

“Do you believe yourself to be mad? I see no sign of it.”

Hamlet gave him a twisted smile. “Perhaps you will when I tell you why I joined your company.”

* * *

Hamlet found himself telling Thomas rather more than he had intended: as much as he had told Judit, though nothing of his father’s death or his cause for revenge.

“Is it possible that I have done this thing, and do not remember?”

“It is possible,” said Thomas, “and it does not make you mad. But it seems to me that there is a far simpler possibility, and – you are familiar with William of Ockham, I trust? The simplest explanation is apt to be the correct one. Someone else killed him just before you came upon him.”

“But who?”

“You would know that better than I. Do you suspect anyone among the courtiers?”

Hamlet considered the question. Horatio, alone, had known why Claudius must die – but he could not imagine Horatio robbing him of the revenge that was his by right. Marcellus and Bernardo had seen his father’s ghost, though they had not heard his words; might one of them have suspected Claudius’s guilt? The other courtiers, for the most part, were worthless flatterers who seemed wholly loyal to Claudius – but flattery could often conceal ambition. It would be ironic, Hamlet thought, if Claudius had died at the hand of a man who hoped to steal his crown.

Very well, then: was there anyone who could reasonably expect to be elected king, with Claudius dead and Hamlet under suspicion of his murder? _Polonius?_ But Polonius seemed to be taking pains to conceal the death, unless – Hamlet drew in his breath. He might be trying to buy enough time for Laertes to arrive from France – and _Laertes_ , Hamlet realized, was not only a popular, charismatic young man but also a distant cousin of the royal family on his mother’s side. He probably _could_ be elected king in the absence of a stronger claim.

Thomas’s voice broke into his thoughts. “By the way, I take it you meant to kill your uncle because you believe he murdered your father, as Feng murdered King Horwendil?”

Hamlet started. “Who told you that?”

“You did. Not in so many words, but you cannot have been ambitious for the throne, for you have made no attempt to claim it. What other motive could you have had but revenge? And besides, it was you who asked for _The Murder of Gonzago_ to be played before him.”

“Yes. Yes, I believe – I _know_ he murdered my father.”

“Might someone else have known it too, after he called for lights and stopped the play?”

“Perhaps.” Hamlet tried to remember who had been at the play that night. Horatio, but Horatio had already known. Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, two or three more of the courtiers: all Claudius’s creatures. Polonius, he supposed might have felt some loyalty to his father, but he was too stupid to see the truth if it had been staring him in the face. _Ophelia?_ She might be clever enough to work it out, but he could not conceive of Ophelia taking up a dagger and slitting a man’s throat. His _mother?_

Ockham’s razor, Hamlet thought grumpily, did not shave as closely as it was reputed to do.

* * *

Martha watched the first performance of _The Tragedy of Amleth_ from behind the stage.

Judit had suggested that her mother play one of the court ladies, but Martha had vetoed the idea. They would need a prompter for a new play, especially one so long, and Frederik would also need her help with his costume changes. He had two very quick ones in the first act, and there were only minutes between his first exit as Marcellus and his entrance as the king. Martha held his royal robes so that he could step into them without a pause, and picked up his soldier’s helmet and halberk after he threw them on the tiring-room floor. Then she listened for the flourish that marked the king’s exit, so that she could have Marcellus’s things ready for him again. _Then_ there was a moment of chaos in the tiring-room, with no fewer than seven actors backstage, most of them changing into costumes for new parts. So she saw nothing of the first two scenes; but she heard a burst or two of applause.

After that there were a few quiet minutes, when Frederik could rest.

“How goes it?” asked Martha, handing her husband a mug of small beer and a handkerchief.

He wiped the sweat from his face. “They seem to like it well enough. But it is still an _impossible_ play. I know not what Judit was thinking when she divided the parts; Thomas was green enough not to notice it, but _she_ ought to know better than to make a man exit and then re-enter in another part at once!”

“She did what she must do. We have too few men.”

“Aye, I know, and a chit of a girl who thinks she knows better than all of them. If Constantine had but lived!” This was what Frederik always said when he was troubled about Thomas, or one of his living children, or the future of the company.

Martha said nothing. Constantine was their first son, who had died of a fever when he was four. It was not that she did not mourn him, but she did not share Frederik’s faith that he would have been the company’s salvation. As far as she could remember, the only times Constantine had showed much interest in the family business was when he was tagging after his adored older sister. It had been _Judit_ who knew how the trapdoors and discovery spaces worked before she was three, and who had learned all the parts as soon as she could read well enough to prompt the actors.

Today Judit flitted in and out of the tiring-room, sometimes helping her mother, more often fussing about her own costumes. She had three brief and silent appearances in the character of one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, a few moments in the crowd of actors, and then a single scene as the Player-Duchess: a woman playing a boy playing a woman. That was all she had been able to wring out of Frederik. She had tried to coax him into letting her play Cornelia, but he had given the part to Alexander – never mind that Alexander had enough trouble learning his lines as Ofelia. Judit had coached him patiently through the mad scenes. Frederik didn’t mind _that_ ; as far as he was concerned, a woman’s place in a theater company was everywhere, so long as it was behind the scenes. Martha had spent five-and-twenty years sewing costumes, looking after properties, watching rehearsals and giving her opinion, being a second mother to the prentices. Being an actor’s wife was busy but varied and pleasurable work, and she had been contented with it.

She wondered, sometimes, what was wrong with Judit that she was not contented – but as always, when her daughter stepped out on stage, she knew. Plays-within-plays were generally poorly written pastiches of theatrical fashions from twenty years ago, but Judit managed to wring pathos from the Player-Duchess’s hackneyed lines, and to make the woman’s grief and uncertainty real when the Poisoner wooed her in dumb-show. From behind the stage, Martha could see that audience’s eyes were on her – and not on King Feng, where they ought to have been. This was a fault, Martha knew; but one for which she was inclined to forgive her daughter.

“Who is the other boy-actor,” muttered one of the gallants seated at the edge of the stage, “and why haven’t they got _him_ playing Ofelia?”

“Ofelia’s the head of the company’s son,” explained his companion.

“He ought not to favor his son. The other’s better.”

 _No_ , thought Martha sadly, _he ought not, but in this case he must_. After all, the _world_ favored sons, and Frederik was not as bad as most men in this regard.

At any rate, no one would accuse him of undue favoritism in Max’s case. The older boy was playing the queen masterfully; there were audible gasps when she cried “ _Thou wilt not murder me_ ,” and then not a sound from the audience, as Thomas and Max’s scene built to a climax.

“ _Flour! Nightgown!_ ” said Henrik in a hoarse whisper. Martha started. She had been so absorbed in the scene herself that she had forgotten there was another quick costume change coming. Luckily, Judit already had it in hand, making Henrik’s face pale with the flour and helping him to change Corambis’s blood-stained doublet for the ghost’s gown.

“Get up, my lord,” said Martha to Prince Hamlet, who had been sitting slumped against the tiring-house wall with his eyes closed whenever he was not on stage. “‘Tis not long before you must enter as Rossencraft, and you are still dressed as the poisoner.”

“Oh, aye.” Hamlet didn’t open his eyes. “Goes it well?”

“Very well,” whispered Judit, flushed and starry-eyed. “Very, _very_ well. Come, I’ll help you with your costume” – which was well, because the prince’s hands were shaking.

Thomas, thought Martha suddenly, had never feared the outcome of a performance too much to watch it. Thomas had done everything Frederik had ever asked of him with competence, professionalism, and not a trace of nerves. Which was another way of saying that the stage was not life or death to him; it was not his ruling passion.

She watched Judit’s hands as she undid the buttons at the prince’s throat, and was suddenly afraid of what might come of her daughter’s friendship with their patron.

* * *

“ _Go_ ,” commanded Hamlet in his final role as Fortenbrasse, “ _bid the soldiers shoot._ ”

There was a peal of gunfire (produced by Alexander, who was in charge of everything involving firecrackers) and a moment of heavy silence. And then wild, tumultuous applause.

* * *

Afterward, there was a general celebration in the inn’s taproom, and the English actors were present. Several of them spoke Latin, although they had learned it at grammar-school, so their conversation was rather full of poetry. Thomas, for his part, spoke some English, although he had learned it from his friend Master Bacon, so _his_ conversation was rather full of science. One way or another, they managed to communicate.

“Tell me,” asked Thomas, “why is it that you travel in Denmark, when you cannot hope to perform here?”

“England’s too hot to hold us at the moment,” said Robin the clown, “thanks to my lord of Essex and that play of Will’s about the hunchback.”

“Not a hunchback,” corrected the head of the company. “Wrong Richard.”

“Well, sodomite, then. Everyone named Richard is either a hunchback or a sodomite, it seems. Which are _you_ , Master Burbage?”

“ _I_ like to think of myself as a lionheart.”

“Sodomite, then,” said Robin promptly, to general laughter.

Master Burbage swatted at him as if he were a fly. “That play this afternoon was very well-liked, was it not? We did not understand much of it, but we could see that you acted the lead part well, and that it pleased the auditors.”

“Thank you,” said Thomas, glowing.

“What is the argument, pray?”

“Ah,” said Hamlet, “the argument is _miching mallecho._ ”

“You will pardon me,” said one of the other English actors, “I do not speak ... Spanish?”

Thomas, feeling that this was a wholly incomprehensible answer even if you _did_ speak Spanish, launched into a brief account of the plot of _The Tragedy of Amleth_.

One of the actors, a quiet, prematurely balding man, was listening to this summary with particular interest; several of the others elbowed him.

“Could you make something of it, Will?” Burbage asked the balding man in English.

“I could,” said Will, “with the Danish players’ permission, of course.” He turned to the Danish actors and said in Latin, “Might we have a copy of your playscript, in exchange for a comedy of our own? You need not fear that we will set ourselves up as rivals; we cannot perform it in Danish, but I believe we could find someone in London to make a rough translation, and you could translate ours, and so both companies would profit by the variety.”

“Will’s too modest to say it,” added the actor called Henry, “but the comedy is of his own making. He’s written some ten or a dozen of them, and the London audiences flock to them like sparrows to breadcrumbs. ‘Tis bound to fill the stalls in Denmark too, provided it is translated and acted well.”

“For my part, I make no objection,” said Thomas, “but the play is not mine to trade. You must ask Frederik, the head of our company.”

He communicated Will’s proposal in Danish to Frederik, who considered it carefully. Playscripts were a valuable commodity, usually kept tightly under the company’s control, but it was true that they seemed to have nothing to fear from actors who spoke no Danish – and the prospect of a new and fashionable comedy was tempting enough to overcome Frederik’s natural caution.

“Very well,” he said at last. “No performances in any country but England, and no translating the playscript or showing it to anybody until you are at home. You will show Thomas three of your most popular comedies, and he will make the selection. Are we agreed?”

Thomas translated this, and Will agreed.

“Thomas, try not to choose one with more than two parts for ladies.”

“That may be difficult,” said Will when this stipulation was communicated to him. “English audiences _like_ ladies, particularly in a comedy.”

Frederik sighed. “No more than _four_ , at any rate.” Will brightened, and said at once that this would not be a problem.

Despairing of the possibility that he could choose a comedy that would really please Frederik, Thomas finally selected one that he knew would please Judit.

* * *

“Your breakfast, sir,” said Ophelia.

Horatio hastened to take the tray from her. He felt guilty about allowing Ophelia to fetch and carry for him, but he knew it would attract attention if she did not behave like his page. He felt even _more_ guilty about using her as a spy, but she had discovered very quickly that the pages gossiped among each other, and that a curious boy could ask questions that would attract attention from a grown man.

“Hear you any news among the boys?” he asked.

Ophelia nodded. “‘Tis said that some people are defying the quarantine, made bold because they know of no one who has taken the plague. There is even an inn in the next town where they are performing a play; some of the boys were talking of playing truant and going to see it this afternoon.”

“A play?” Horatio stopped buttering his bread and looked up abruptly. “Did they say which company it was?”

“Prince Hamlet’s Men, they said.”

It _fit_. Hamlet had disappeared at the same time the actors had left the palace, and he had loved going to plays above all things. And, of course, he was their patron; if he decided to travel with them, they would have felt bound to allow him.

“Pack your things when you’ve finished your breakfast,” he said. “We will see this play.”


	6. And by Their Show, You Shall Know All That You Are Like to Know

Horatio and Ophelia were late taking their seats, having had some difficulty at the entrance to the inn-yard. Ophelia had tried to give the woman who was taking their money a sixpence for one seat on the benches, and another penny for standing room. Horatio had refused to allow her to stand, and had given the woman another five pence. Ophelia had insisted, “But pages _do_ stand. I’ve seen them, and it would look strange if I did anything else.” Horatio replied, rather more loudly than he had intended, “You’re not my page, you’re my little brother, and you’re very troublesome, now take your seat.” And then the other playgoers had started to stare at them – which was understandable, since people didn’t normally argue over whether they were brothers or master and servant, but annoying nonetheless.

So they missed the first few scenes of the play. And as they watched, Horatio began to have the curious sense that his eyes were betraying him.

He had been sure, for a little while, that his prince was playing the lead part: the walk, the clothing, the mannerisms, were all Hamlet’s, or a fair imitation of them. But the face and the voice were wrong, even though the actor’s build and coloring were about right. But a man could change his voice. Could he change his face too?

And then there had been a scene with Corambis (who talked just like Ophelia’s father) and his servant Montano, and Horatio had suddenly been equally sure that Hamlet was playing Montano, except that he seemed almost impossibly un-Hamlet-like in a servant’s livery and a ratty old wig.

Corambis’s daughter burst in to report that the prince was mad, and Ophelia abruptly made a choking noise, blushed, and hid her face in her handkerchief.

“Why, _brother_ ,” whispered Horatio, “what’s the matter?”

“How could he _know_ that?”

“How could who know what?”

“The man who wrote the play. How could he know what passed between me and my father?”

“I know not,” said Horatio, who had just been wondering – with an uncanny prickle at the back of his neck – how the playwright could have known what had passed between him and Prince Hamlet on the night they had seen the ghost. “But you must not show that you think it strange; people are staring.”

“Do not _you_ think it strange?”

“Yes. Very.”

And then the prince’s false friends Rossencraft and Gilderstone made an appearance, and Horatio and Ophelia glanced at each other and laughed until everyone around them started staring again, because the actor playing Rossencraft had imitated Rosencrantz to the _life_. And Horatio wondered for a mad moment whether Rosencrantz had joined the company in his search for Hamlet. Except the face was wrong there, as well. Actually, _this_ actor looked a lot like Hamlet too.

Then Prince Amleth and Rossencraft were both on stage at the same time, and Horatio was no longer sure what he thought.

He and Ophelia talked it over, in whispers; Ophelia was quite as confused as Horatio was, but she said “At any rate, he must have _written_ the play,” and Horatio, who had already reached the same conclusion, nodded.

Suddenly Ophelia drew in her breath. “Does this mean King Claudius – No. No, surely he could not have done such a thing. God forgive me for thinking it.”

“He did.”

“How _wicked!_ I am not sorry he is dead!”

“Nor am I.”

“Someone ought to tell the truth! Before the whole kingdom, I mean, and not only in a play.”

Horatio sighed. “So they should. But who would believe the truth, if it were known?”

But Ophelia was no longer listening. She was watching the scene between Amleth and his beloved, and turning redder and redder all the while. Occasionally she whispered, “I never said that!” or “How _could_ he?” and then, finally, “I hate him!” Horatio, who felt profoundly embarrassed for her, lent her his hat so that she would have something larger and shadier to hide beneath. Luckily, everyone else was also riveted by the action on the stage, for quite different reasons, and all of this passed unnoticed.

Then King Feng betrayed himself when he saw his crime re-enacted before his eyes, and the audience suddenly went all abuzz like a beehive. Some of them, Horatio thought, must have heard the tale of Claudius’s reaction to _The Murder of Gonzago_ , as carefully as Polonius had worked to suppress it. He began to see a glimmer of possibility that someone might believe the truth, after all.

Then – to his utter shock – Prince Amleth stabbed Corambis and was shipped off to England, and Ofelia went mad and drowned herself (“I _shall_ kill him,” whispered Ophelia, “and the jury will find it self-defense, for he seems to have killed _me_ first.”) And then there was a very strange bit with some comic gravediggers and a skull, and Amleth leapt into the grave, proclaimed his love for Ofelia, and got into a fistfight with her brother Leartes.

Strangely, Ophelia grew misty-eyed at this. “I do not _know_ whether I shall kill him or marry him.”

Horatio didn’t know what to tell her.

And neither of them noticed the young man who paid his admission, though the play was nearly over, and slipped quietly into the back of the inn-yard.

* * *

The play was nearly at an end; there was only the last bout of the fencing-match left, and then Amleth’s death scene. And it was going as well as yesterday, maybe better. Thomas could _feel_ the waves of excitement coming from the audience. There was dead silence when the queen took up the poisoned cup, and then a collective gasp.

“ _Come,_ ” said the Queen, as yet unaware that she was dying, “ _let me wipe thy face_.”

Thomas accepted the handkerchief gratefully. The sweat running into his eyes was real.

“ _Come for the third, Leartes!_ ” he called. His voice was already going hoarse; it was well that they were nearly done.

He and Karl took up their foils again. They stood like wildcats ready to pounce for a long moment, and then sprang.

In a fight scene, everything vanished except the other man, and the swords, and the rushing air. It was like a dance, only one that carried a real risk of losing an eye; it was like swimming under the sea; it was like nothing else in the world. The audience seemed miles off, like distant thunder.

And so Thomas was the last person in the inn-yard to notice that there was an extra man on stage – until the stranger was almost in his face, crying, “Thou damned dog, there’s for my sister’s honor!”

The stranger’s sword bit into his arm, and he had just enough time to register that _it was not blunted_ , and that his own blood was spurting onto the stage. He tried to parry with his good arm, and Karl had his back, but they didn’t stand a chance against the stranger, who moved as if he were a god and not a man.

Hygenia, who was the sort of small dog who thought she was a big dog, ran out from behind the curtains and sank her teeth into the stranger’s ankle. That bought them a little time. Then Fortenbrasse rushed onto the stage, several minutes ahead of his cue, and ripped off his wig and false beard. “Nay, _this_ is I,” he shouted, “Hamlet the Dane!”

“The devil take thee!”

The stage seemed to be shimmering like a road on a hot day, and Thomas was beginning to doubt the evidence of his senses, but he thought he saw Prince Hamlet charge the stranger, armed with only a prop sword. “Nay, Karl, this fight’s mine.”

Caught off guard, and with Hygenia still nipping at his breeches, the stranger was beaten back for a moment. Thomas staggered off stage, clutching his wounded arm. Blood was welling between his fingers, and he knew – as only a medical man could know – that he was in trouble.

“Judit,” he called weakly, “where are you? Fetch a basin of water and some clean cloth, and call your mother. Tell her to bring a needle and thread.”

To his relief, Judit emerged from the prompter’s box at once. “What’s the matter, Thomas, do you need us to sew up your costume _again?_ ”

“I need you to sew up _me._ ”

Judit’s eyes widened at the sight of the blood. “Good God, Thomas! Who did this to you?”

“It makes no matter. Put your hand there, above where I’m hurt, and press until the bleeding slows. Can you do that?”

“Yes. Oh, my dear. What _happened?_ ”

“I have no idea. A madman. Or an assassin. Something.” He found that it cost him most of his remaining strength to speak.

“Sh-h-h.” 

Thomas closed his eyes.

* * *

“ _Laertes!_ ” Horatio rushed onto the stage, followed by Ophelia, and thrust himself into the fray. The prince and his fellow-actor were doing their best to defend themselves with stage foils, but they wouldn’t last long without a real sword; Laertes had already drawn blood. “ _Listen_ to me – you fool – before you commit high treason!”

“Stand aside, Horatio. My quarrel is not with you.”

“I think that it is. You spoke of your sister’s honor, but the prince never touched her. She ran away with _me_.”

“ _What?_ ” said Laertes and Hamlet at the same time. They stopped trying to kill each other, and both looked murderously at Horatio instead. Horatio couldn’t decide whether this was an improvement.

“‘Tis a lie!” cried Ophelia. “Well – ‘tis true that I ran away with him, but he has done nothing touching mine honor! And as for my hair,” she added passionately, though somewhat irrelevantly, “I cut it myself.”

“What are you _doing_ here?” demanded Hamlet.

“I might just as well ask what I was doing in your play!” said Ophelia, and slapped him. Then she turned around and slapped Laertes, for good measure. Then she burst into tears.

“This boy is certainly my sister,” said Laertes, who had been looking dazed.

“Yes,” said Horatio wearily. “‘Twas clever of you to notice that at last. Oliver, brother, that was _also_ an act of high treason. Do not do it again.”

“I shall not. But he deserved it.”

“And so I did,” said Hamlet. It occurred to Horatio, suddenly, that the prince’s absence seemed to have _changed_ him: made him less sure of his own rightness, among other things. “And ‘tis not treason; I am neither king nor like to be king.”

“Can we not talk of these things somewhere quieter, and not on the public stage?” Horatio asked.

“Oh – yes. Of course. The tiring-room, perhaps.” The player who had been acting Leartes led the way to an alcove behind the stage.

As they exited, the audience began, uncertainly, to applaud. Horatio heard one of the gentlemen on the front bench remark, “‘Twas a good play, but I did not understand the ending. Who _were_ those people?”

* * *

Judit removed the tattered remains of Thomas’s shirt and began bathing the wound. The bleeding had slowed, if not entirely stopped, and he decided he was going to survive after all.

“Bathe the wound in aqua-vitae after you wash away the blood. It will heal cleaner.” He had picked up that tip from a surgeon in Florence. The aqua-vitae stung like hell, but it was a good sign that he felt so much pain; in his experience, God was merciful and eased the passing of the mortally wounded. “Now, stitch it up.”

A lifetime of mending costumes had made Judit an excellent needlewoman. Flesh and skin, he knew, were a different matter than cloth and leather, but her hand never slipped. Without being told, she bound up the wound in clean cloth.

“Good girl. Now, look to the others.” Karl had stumbled into the tiring-room with a gash on one cheek; it would leave a nasty scar if not tended to. Prince Hamlet, as far as he could tell, had nothing worse than a scratch or two, but still, he was the _prince_.

“I had rather tend to thee.”

“I’ll do well enough now. You help me best by looking to the others.”

Judit looked for a moment as if she were going to argue. He stared her down, and, when she finally turned away to wash the blood off of Karl’s face, indulged in the blessed luxury of closing his eyes again. He murmured instructions to her every now and again, but he didn’t think she really needed them.

It didn’t seem more than a moment before she was kneeling by his side again. “How dost, Thomas?”

“Are you not going to look to the prince?”

“Mother’s tending him. He’s not badly hurt; he has no need of me. How dost?”

“Well enough.” Better than well, he thought. He felt lightheaded but entirely, inexplicably, happy. It was like being drunk, but a thousand times better. “Thou didst well. Thou’dst make a good physician’s wife.”

“And thou a good player’s husband.”

This, Thomas decided, was the sort of minor detail they could iron out later.

* * *

Horatio would have preferred not to air the court’s dirty laundry in front of a company of players, the innkeeper and his wife, and God only knew who else, but it seemed to be a lost cause. Hamlet, fortunately, had decided to keep his mouth shut after the third or fourth time Horatio had pointed out there would be a fitter time to talk these matters over – but he had no influence at all over Laertes and Ophelia, who were alternately embracing and quarreling.

“‘Tis _not_ that I am not glad to see you,” Laertes insisted, “but you ought to have stayed in the palace. Is it a lady’s office to roam about the world seeking a man who is neither her kin nor her husband?”

“Is it a gentleman’s office to pick a fight with a player on the public stage, and become a common spectacle?”

“I have asked his pardon. I took him for another man.”

“Aye, you took him for a far better man! Was _that_ the work of a loyal. subject?”

“Once again, we are _not_ his subjects! He said so himself, and I did _precisely_ what a loyal subject would do, which was, to lay hands upon the man who is thought to have killed the king.”

The motherly woman who had been tending to Hamlet’s wounds had preserved a discreet silence, but now she looked up, startled. “Why, how could Prince Hamlet have killed the king? Was he not at Wittenberg when he died?”

Laertes went ashen.

“It must be known,” said Hamlet suddenly. “It is time we ended this interlude. King Claudius is dead, and I am charged with his murder. You are my witnesses that I give myself over to the officers of the court; I will go freely to face the justice of the new king, whoever he may be.”

The players fell silent, astonished – but looking around the room, Horatio saw that the man Laertes had wounded was not as surprised by this news as the others, and neither was the red-haired girl sitting at his side. He must ask Hamlet about them later, if he ever again had the chance to speak with the prince alone.

“He did not kill King Claudius,” said the head of the company of players unexpectedly.

“‘Tis well known at court he did,” said Laertes.

The head player looked stubborn; it was plain he was used to being obeyed. “And I say that he cannot, for we all saw the king alive at Elsinore, and this man has been in our presence ever since the king left the room that night.”

“And so he has,” added another player, the old fellow who had been playing Corambis. “I will swear it before God and man; he has been our fellow these three weeks.”

“And so will I,” said a third player.

“And I,” said the wounded man. “I have shared a chamber with him; he has not been out of my company day or night.”

“All of us will swear the same,” said the red-haired girl. Her expression plainly said, _And what are you going to do about it?_

“But –” said Horatio, and fell silent. They were lying, all of them; he had been with Hamlet after the play, and none of the players had been there, and then the prince had left the hall alone and turned his steps toward the chapel where Claudius had later been found dead. But there seemed to be at least ten witnesses prepared to swear otherwise, and he began to think this was not a bad thing.

Hamlet had been looking as astounded as any of them when the head player spoke, but he recovered himself. “There you have it, Laertes. It appears I may be innocent after all. I assure you, you are no more surprised than I am.”

Just then, the curtain separating the tiring-room from the stage parted, and a disreputable-looking fellow slouched in.

“Why, Johannes!” exclaimed several of the players. “What dost thou here?”

“They let me out of prison,” explained the man. “They said a year was long enough for stealing a chicken. More than long enough, I call it, when there was no evidence at all.”

“That’s because you _ate_ the evidence,” said one of the boy actors.

“A necessary precaution. And the last decent meal I’ve had in a year. I regret nothing except getting caught.” Johannes surveyed the tiring-room, taking in the fact that a number of the actors were wounded and there were various well-dressed strangers about the place. “Why, what’s happened while I was gone?”

The actors looked at one another.

“Nothing of importance,” said the head of the company at last. “‘Tis thy good luck that we’re short a man again. Get to work.”

**Epilogue: This Same Play, Against Your Nuptial**

“ _Another_ invitation to Elsinore,” grumbled Frederik. “Does no one at the palace remember what happened the _last_ time?”

The players drowned out his last few words with their cheers.

“You’ve all gone mad,” said Frederik when he could be heard again. “Well! To it, then. ‘Tis a royal wedding, so we’ll need to play a comedy, and the king requests one in particular – the one the English players traded us for Amleth.”

The play was a good one, and had proved reliably popular, so this was no surprise. King Hamlet’s other request was surprising, and it outraged Frederik’s sense of decorum; but one did not disobey a royal command.

“I will play Leonato. Thomas, Benedick as usual, and one of the watch. Karl, Claudio and Conrade. Hans, Don John, Friar Francis, and Dogberry. Henrik, Antonio, Balthasar, the Sexton, and another of the watch. Johannes, Don Pedro and Borachio; _do not_ muddle the two parts, or I’ll have thee sent back to prison. Alec – where’s that child – Martha, find him and tell him he’s to play Margaret and the Boy. Max, Hero –”

“I am used to playing Beatrice, Father. And Alec has already learned Hero’s part.”

“I know that, boy – _if_ thou callst it learning. For a court performance, it must be word-perfect. Thou must needs play Hero.”

“But, Father, who is to –”

“Judit.”

Judit looked up, and Frederik was suddenly unable to bring himself to repeat the king’s words. For a fleeting moment, he wished he had let the man stand trial for Claudius’s murder after all.

He handed the letter to Thomas. “You tell her. ‘Tis time you were head of the company, anyway; my day is past.”

Thomas didn’t even pretend to hide his smile. “Beatrice,” he said. “By royal command.”

Judit flew into her husband’s arms and kissed him in a manner that showed – in Frederik’s opinion – a complete lack of propriety. Before all the company, too.

“And, Martha, you’re to play Ursula,” said Thomas when Judit let him speak again. “The king says we are to do it in the Italian style, and set a new fashion at court.”

* * *

The play went off brilliantly. Of course, the part was perfect for Judit; she had watched and sighed while Max played Beatrice on the public stage. It had taken her no time at all to learn it and make it her own.

Afterwards, the players were bidden to the wedding supper – which they had anticipated – and made to sit at the table nearest the king and his new queen, which they had _not_. Several courtiers’ heads turned, and there were murmurs of envy from the tables farther away. Hamlet ignored these reactions. He was already rumored to be the most eccentric king of Denmark since the days of Amleth.

“My lord,” said Frederik, nearly too overcome to speak, “you do us too much honor.”

“Not so,” said the king. “Even kings pay tribute to great artists.”

“I liked it very well,” added Queen Ophelia. “I am glad that I have seen you play out a play to the end, for once.”

“‘Twas much better than the last one,” added the dowager Queen. “I like plays with happy endings, and no poisonings. You ought to do more of those.”

“I did enact the first emperor Julius once,” Polonius reminisced. “‘Twas a toy – a trifling foolish tragedy – but my fellow-scholars said it came off well. ‘Tis a good warning against pride – the tragedy of the emperor Julius, that is – and an illustration of the evil ends that come to such as move treason and conspiracies. Yours was also good,” he added as an afterthought. “I have always told my daughter that a women’s reputation is her chiefest jewel, and once tarnished –”

King Hamlet looked at the ceiling. “A tarnished _jewel_ would be a wonder indeed.”

“Father,” said the new queen, rather hurriedly, “will you taste some of these comfits?”

Frederik began to think that their proximity to the royal family might be a mixed blessing, after all.

The king turned to Thomas and Judit. “I hear you are lately married, too. I congratulate you.”

“Thank you, my lord,” said Judit. To Frederik’s everlasting relief, she did not show any signs of over-familiarity with their patron; if anyone did, it was Thomas, who promptly asked the king whether he had read the _Tabulae Pictae_ of Fabricius of Padua.

“I have not,” said Hamlet. He looked as if he might actually be interested. “You must tell me about it sometime.”

“The Picts,” Polonius explained helpfully, “so called because their warriors painted their faces, were a most valiant people, and their writing-tablets are likewise a very interesting study for antiquarians.”

“Should you like to be a court physician, Thomas?”

Oh, _no!_ Frederik thought. Just when he thought he might be able to retire to the country, or at least step aside and ease his way into a dignified old age playing bit parts, like Henrik...

“I – I am honored beyond my desert – I know not what to say, my lord,” said Thomas. He glanced at Judit. “Might – might I have a little time to think?”

Frederik began to breathe again. “A little time,” he thought, _might_ be stretched out into five or six years, long enough to make a man of Maximilian.

* * *

The wedding feast was over; the servants were carrying out the broken meats, and the musicians had stopped playing and were drinking off some much-needed ale. The bride had asked, and been granted, half an hour’s leave to prepare herself for bed.

“‘Tis like to be a very long half-hour, my lord,” said Horatio.

Hamlet rose. “I’ll show thee a wonder to beguile the time.”

“Where are we going, my lord?”

Hamlet opened the door to a staircase that led only to the castle battlements. “This way. I would have one last word with my uncle’s murderer.”

Horatio hardly knew what to say – the obvious reply, “But are _you_ not your uncle’s murderer?” being the sort of thing that the entire court had agreed had best remain unspoken. None of the courtiers had actively stepped forward to _contradict_ the players’ story, as nobody wanted a pitched battle over the kingship, but it was far from clear that anyone believed it.

The wind was icy; it was already autumn, nearly as cold and dark as it had been ten months before, when Marcellus and Bernardo had first asked Horatio to share their watch.

“My father,” said Hamlet, “has been dead a just year today.”

He knelt at the foot of one of the castle towers, the same one where they had once seen the dead king approaching. A silvery mist was rolling in from the sea.

“My lord –”

The mist resolved itself into the shape of a man, bearded, a warrior in armor. Not a young man. Horatio drew in his breath.

“Father,” said Hamlet. “I have not done as you commanded. Well, you know that. But I would have your blessing.”

The apparition’s hands fluttered for a moment over the king’s bowed head, and then it melted back into the mist. Horatio thought he heard a voice say, “‘Tis well; revenge was not thy office,” but in the next moment he was not sure at all, and thought it might be only the roaring of the sea.

“My _lord_. What –?

“Judit gave me back the dagger at supper tonight,” said Hamlet. “She found it in a trunk of stage-properties, and had it cleaned. She passed it to me under the table with a note, while everyone else was talking of the wedding and the revels.”

“And –?”

“It was my uncle Claudius’s dagger. He died by his own hand.”

“Your father’s ghost ...” Horatio began to understand. “Your father _appeared_ to him in the chapel that night, and drove him to put an end to himself.”

“Just so. It seems that I’m not mad, after all.”

“My lord, you have been standing outside on the battlements in the night air talking to a ghost.”

Hamlet laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, only a _little_ mad. Let’s in, and go to bed.”


End file.
